Maravi

State position on PVT, Caritas challenges MMD

State position on PVT, Caritas challenges MMD
By Moses Kuwema
Wed 25 May 2011, 04:01 CAT

THE MMD should clearly state its position on the parallel vote tabulation (PVT), says Caritas Zambia.

Commenting on the revelations that the MMD planned to use the PVT system during this year’s elections, Caritas acting director Milimo Mwiba said it was not right for the MMD to brand the exercise illegal and yet it was secretly strategising on how to implement it.

“It is clear now that the civil society organisations, the opposition political parties and the ruling MMD government are all agreeing on the need for PVT. And the revelations of the MMD's intentions to use PVT just goes to show how important the exercise is,” said Mwiba in an interview on Monday.

“We challenge them to state their position on PVT after which a stakeholders meeting to discuss this issue should be called. They can’t be saying it is illegal and on the other side they are working on it.”

And reacting to the recent accusations purporting that Caritas Zambia was in an alliance with the Patriotic Front (PF) and planned to remove the MMD government from power in this year’s elections, Mwiba stated that the accusations were false and misleading.

Mwiba stated that the accusations were only meant to discredit and embarrass not only Caritas Zambia but the entire Catholic Church.

“These accusations should be dismissed with the contempt they deserve by all peace loving Zambians. This is because Caritas Zambia is a credible organisation which is non-partisan and we have proved this over the many years we have been in existence.

Our vision as an organisation is to see a Zambian society where every person, regardless of their political affiliation, is free to fully attain integral human development and live in harmony,” Mwiba stated.

She stated that Caritas believed in a multiparty democratic system where various political parties competed fairly to assume political leadership.

“Therefore, deliberately choosing to support one political party defeats this very principle. For example, the efforts we make in providing space for all political parties to sell themselves to the public through ‘Meet your candidates’ forums go a long way in proving our non-partisanship nature,” she stated.

Mwiba urged their cooperating partners not to be hoodwinked by the false accusations because Caritas Zambia was a transparent organisation.

Recently, the government-owned and state-controlled public media have been carrying stories alleging that Caritas Zambia is trying to field some of its district coordinators as parliamentary candidates on the PF ticket in this year’s elections.

Labels: 2011 ELECTIONS, CARITAS, MMD, VOTERIGGING

posted by MrK @ 4:16 PM