Muzungu asks court to nullify Mufumbwe election
By Namatama Mundia
Wed 28 July 2010, 04:01 CAT
LOSING MMD Mufumbwe by-election candidate Mulondwe Muzungu yesterday asked Lusaka High Court Judge Philip Musonda to declare the April 29 elections null and void. And Muzungu has admitted that there are some MMD cadres that went to Mufumbwe for the by-elections.
This is in a matter where Muzungu is challenging the election of UPND's Elliot Kamondo as Mufumbwe member of parliament, arguing that the polls were marred with violence.
Testifying in the matter, Muzungu, 67, of plot 106 Hellen Kaunda in Lusaka prayed that the Mufumbwe by-election be nullified because of violence.
“My prayer is for the declaration that the election was null and void, that is my prayer and hope,” he said.
Muzungu, who said he is winding up as Zambia’s ambassador to Libya and politician, told the court that the entire Mufumbwe constituency was gripped with fear.
“Not in the history of Mufumbwe did they ever see campaigners in an election wielding pangas, pistols and armed with catapults. The entire electorate was actually terrified, there was great violence,” Muzungu said.
In cross examination by Kamondo’s lawyer Bonaventure Mutale, Muzungu admitted that there were a few cadres from Lusaka who traveled to Mufumbwe.
“I am not quite sure about cadres coming from Copperbelt but there were few cadres from Lusaka. They came peaceful to re-enforce the campaign, they came to help in various campaign tasks,” he said.
Muzungu said the violence was between MMD and UPND supporters.
“According to the reports I got, the UPND were actually aggressive,” he said.
Muzungu said there were violence incidences which were not reported to the police due to the long distance.
“For example in Miluzhi and Kamizekezeke, the violence there was not reported,” he said.
Muzungu denied being related to chief Chizela and chief Munyambala.
He said he and chief Chizela were partners in business and were both shareholders at Kalewa mine.
Muzungu said despite his son being married in chief Chizela’s family, they were not related because according to the Kaonde’s, relation is among people from the same clan.
He added that chief Munyambala was not his uncle.
Muzungu’s lawyer Eric Silwamba told the court that he was resting the case for the petitioner.
Judge Musonda then adjourned the matter to Friday.
Labels: BY-ELECTIONS, MULONDWE MUZUNGU, PHILIP MUSONDA
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Muzungu petitions Kamondo’s election
By George Chellah
Wed 26 May 2010, 04:00 CAT
LOSING MMD candidate Mulondwe Muzungu has petitioned the election of UPND’s Elliot Kamondo as member of parliament for Mufumbwe Constituency. According to the petition filed in the Lusaka High Court dated May 24, 2010, Muzungu requested that the election be declared null and void.
“Wherefore your petitioner, prays that it be determined that the said Eliot Kamondo was not duly elected or returned and that the election was null and void ab initio. He therefore prays that he be granted the following reliefs: (a) a declaration that the election was NULL AND VOID AB INITIO; (b) a declaration that the respondent was not duly elected; (c) costs of and incidental to this Petition; (e) such declaration and orders as this Honourable Court may deem fit,” read the petition in part.
And in the affidavit verifying election petition, Muzungu stated that the campaigns were characterized by undue influence that resulted from threats and violence to life and property and rampant physical attacks on MMD members and members of the general public, resulting in severe injuries to persons and damage to property.
“That the said acts of violence resulted in several people being occasioned with serious injuries and being treated in hospitals and most of the perpetrators of the violence being arrested by the police. That I verily believe that as a result of the acts of violence that characterised the parliamentary by-election members of the MMD and the general public feared for their safety while others chose to leave their residence and fled the area without participating in the said elections,” Muzungu stated.
“Further that on the 30th day of April 2010 at a rally held at Freedom Square in the Mufumbwe District of the North-western Province of the Republic of Zambia addressed by Mr Hakainde Hichilema the UPND leader expressly offered and promised to deliver 20 heads of cattle to the voters in the Mufumbwe parliamentary constituency as a fulfillment of an earlier promise he made to the electorate that he would deliver the said animals if they voted for ELIOT KAMONDO, the Respondent herein.
I verily believe that the said promise was designed to unlawfully induce the members of the public to vote for the respondent and alter their independent and voluntary decision at the poll.
“That on the 30th day of April 2010, the Returning Officer declared the Respondent Eliot Kamondo as duly elected and returned member of parliament for the Mufumbwe parliamentary constituency, constituency number 107. That I have duly lodged an Election Petition herein which sets the particulars of incidents of undue influence and treating which I intend to rely on.”
The petition was settled by Messrs Mvunga Associates, Messrs Eric Silwamba & Company and Messrs George Kunda & Company, advocates for the petitioner.
Labels: BY-ELECTIONS, ELLIOT KAMONDO, MULONDWE MUZUNGU
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Sata is a real mad person, says Rupiah
By Speedwell Mupuchi in Mufumbwe
Wed 28 Apr. 2010, 04:00 CAT
PF leader Michael Sata after addressing a rally at Kameta village in Katete to drum up support for Milanzi Constituency PF parliamentary candidate Albert Banda on Monday - Picture by Thomas Nsama
“nichisilu cha zoona"
PRESIDENT Rupiah Banda has said Patriotic Front president Michael Sata is a real mad man.
And President Banda insinuated that UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema accumulates his money through dubious ways. Meanwhile, Hichilema said President Banda has lowered the quality of the Republican presidency.
Addressing a public rally at Wishimanga Basic School on Monday afternoon to drum up support for MMD candidate Mulondwe Muzungu in tomorrow’s parliamentary by-election, President Banda said when he went to pray on Easter Friday at Lusaka’s St Ignitius, the noise from Sata made him realise “nichisilu cha zoona (a real mad man)”.
President Banda said Sata was angry, vulgar and demeaning to people. He wondered how Sata could take people of North Western Province and describe them in disparaging manner.
His comments came in the wake of a statement at the same rally by Titus Kaponda from Mwinilunga who said PF leaders at one time said people from the Noth-Western Province were like buttocks and would always remain behind; and that they were like doormats to be used by others to get to power.
He said Sata and Hichilema do not want to listen from anyone and that if elected presidents, they would become dictators.
“Have you ever seen a leader who can’t even smile to people he wants to ask for a vote? He Hichilema is a symbol of anger and frustration, he hates even the people he wants to lead,” President Banda said. “… I think we are in for a hard time; has anyone of you seen him smiling, even on a picture, there are so many cameras taking photos, have you ever seen him smiling?”
President Banda asked people whether they have ever heard Hichilema refer to old men as his fathers.
As President Banda was addressing the rally, some people left the meeting preferring to watch the live telecast by Muvi TV. Muvi TV have been paid to broadcast live President Banda’s campaigns.
At the President’s first rally at Kashima West Basic School, Muvi TV had to “borrow” a ZNBC camera to enhance the angles of their coverage.
Sources said ZNBC’s coverage was being beamed live by Muvi TV.
Only a few MMD cadres were heard responding to the President’s speech by either ululating or breaking into a song. The rest kept quiet or just laughed.
Earlier at a rally at Kashima West Basic School, President Banda repeated calling Hichilema a puppy for allegedly equating him to a dog.
President Banda told the people, most of whom were taken to the area from other slightly distant places, how his government was committed to agriculture and announced that the marketing season would open in May instead of July.
“They say that I am not bright. How come you have never been an MP if you are bright? How come you have never worked in the public service, how come? How come you have never been anything in your life apart from accumulating money in a dubious way?” President Banda retorted in an apparent reference to Hichilema.
President Banda spent a larger portion of his address attacking Hichilema and Sata than actually campaigning for Muzungu.
He told the people that Hichilema equated him to a dog. He said his friends advised him to do something but that he could not, except to wonder what type of parenting the UPND leader grew in.
“I wonder what type of parentage this boy grew in, who was his father? Who was his mother? To take someone, a human being like myself to call a dog!” he remarked. “I think he was badly brought up. I feel sorry for him. He misses something in his life. If he says I am a dog, then he is a puppy. Uuza neo ati ndine imbwa, waputsa ngako (you say I am a dog, you are stupid indeed) - Mwana wa imbwa (son of a dog)!”
And President Banda urged people to reject the UPND saying it had no record of looking after Zambians because the party had never been in power.
He said Hichilema, as young as he was, should be feeling bruised having lost elections twice.
President Banda said Hichilema and his party, in their desperate bid to grab power from the MMD, had gone into a Pact with the Patriotic Front and Sata whom he said lost elections three times.
He said one who wanted to be Republican president must be accepted by the whole country. He regurgitated about how he beat Sata and Hichilema in North-Western, Eastern and Western provinces and how he came out second in Southern Province.
President Banda said going by the results of the last Presidential election, it was clear Zambians, especially people of Southern Province, had rejected Sata and wondered on what basis Hichilema went ahead to form a Pact with the PF.
President Banda said the UPND could not go to the people of Mufumbwe and campaign on the basis of things MMD had not done.
“There are millions of things we have not done, you can’t do everything at the same time,” he said.
He noted that people of North Western Province would be happy if his government completes the Mutanda-Chavuma road. He also told the people that his government had decided to allocate K25 billion for construction of a boarding school in Mufumbwe.
He further disclosed that K2 billion had been put aside to build 38 additional classrooms in Mufumbwe and a further US$50 million to connect the province to the national grid.
President Banda described Muzungu as a wonderful, experienced candidate who was devoted to the service of people and was therefore suitable to represent Mufumbwe.
He said there was need for leaders who would help unite people and not ones that would divide them.
Muzungu praised Zambia’s leaders, from Dr Kenneth Kaunda to President Banda for maintaining peace in the nation. He accused the UPND of being tribal.
Muzungu also told the people that while he was member of parliament for the area, he helped many people without looking at their tribes.
“Hakainde, we don’t want you here, zwaa! You are disrespectful. Go back to Southern Province where you are insulting your chiefs,” said Muzungu.
He said Hichilema and Sata were vulgar in their speech, accusing the former of having insulted chief Chizela.
Muzungu pledged to spend the remaining days of his life working for the Mufumbwe community.
But Hichilema wondered why President Banda had not arrested him if he dubiously accumulated his wealth.
“Looking at his level of hatred he has against me, obviously he could have moved in to arrest me if there was a crime I committed. He knows that there is no crime. It is sad to see a President being petty, being jealousy and as head of state you must be above pettiness and jealously,” Hichilema said.
On not having worked in the public service, Hichilema said the public sector does not employ everybody.
“That shows the shallowness because if we were in office, we would be working with the private sector to create more jobs. So he thinks everybody who works in the private sector is dull. He is not bright. People would like to work for the private sector because the pay is better,” Hichilema said.
“Nurses move from public hospitals to private ones. He calls those dull? Look at the thinking of this President? He doesn’t even support the growth of the private sector. But you can see, maybe that’s why Magande called him a man without an agenda for this country.”
Hichilema said the only way to expand Zambia’s economy was to grow the private sector. He said if the head of state does not know how to grow and expand an economy, then he was a wrong head of state.
“And why have I not been an MP? (laughs) I have never wanted to be an MP. If I wanted to be an MP, it’s common knowledge, in my village I would have been an MP for Bweengwa. I have done enough work there. I live with the people harmoniously there,” Hichilema said.
“He (Rupiah) lost Munali seat to Simeon Kampata Chambauleme, a school teacher who was on a bicycle. Rupiah Banda lost, he wants to pretend that he has never lost an election but he lost under the UNIP era. He lost to a schoolteacher. That schoolteacher exists and is willing to explain how he dribbled Rupiah Banda. So that forced Rupiah Banda to return to the village in Chipata.”
Hichilema said President Banda wanted to pretend that he was a champion of elections. He advised him to give credit to late president Levy Mwanawasa who fished him out from retirement having been battered by a schoolteacher.
Labels: MULONDWE MUZUNGU, RUPIAH BANDA, SATA
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