By GIDEON NYENDWA
THE rampant nullification of petitioned PF parliamentary seats is highly questionable, PF vice president Given Lubinda has said.
And PF Member of the Central Committee in charge of Information and Publicity, Raphael Nakacinda urged the judiciary to do the right thing in handling various petitions following the 12 August elections this year.
Mr. Lubinda said it was worrying that some seats that were petitioned on similar grounds were being nullified and others upheld.
“The inconsistencies in the judgement is worrying,” he said.
He said the party was going to appeal the nullified seats.
Mr. Lubinda said that there was no way seats that were petitioned on similar grounds could get different judgement by the courts.
He said one would expect that by and large all the cases that were petitioned on the same grounds would have been nullified but the surprise was why some were being upheld.
Meanwhile, Mr Nakacinda described certain grounds upon which some seats have been nullified as the joke of the year.
“For the judge to suggest that Hon Malanji didn’t have a certificate is laughable. We have the Nakonde MP whose seat has been nullified because they want to place the entire responsibility of condemning violence in that election on him and say because he didn’t condemn the violence therefore we nullify the seat. That is a laughable ground for nullification.
“For Bowman Lusambo, to have a situation where a nickname was given to him by his own people in his own Constituency because of the work culture of being on the ground and pushing for development, and they therefore call him Buldozzer…and the judge says that name was intimidating to the electorates, and many other grounds used so far in the seats that have been nullified,” he said.
Mr Nakacinda said it was unfair for the Lunte Constituency MP Mutotwe Kafwaya to have his seat nullified because he had been “campaigning saying that he was one of those soliciting for money for the social cash transfer and he valued that and that he said if he didn’t win people may not continue receiving the social cash transfer” was unfair.
Mr Nakacinda questioned if the seats were going to be nullified based on the promises made to the electorates prior to the polling day.
“I mean the gentleman was minister and he was one of the great debaters on the floor of the house advocating for an increase of the social cash transfer. How then could you nullify a seat like that? are we now going to an extent of examining the campaign messages, campaign promises made to the electorates? What of the fact that President Hakainde Hichilema promised to procure fertilizer at US$400 per tonne? And today we have a scandal at his laps of having given a contract to someone who used to supply fertilizer for more than US$1000 per tonne.
“A scandal which is not only a scandal because of the price but because one of his sponsors in the campaign who happens to be a husband to one of his ministers is actually at the center of that scandal,” he said.
The courts have nullified PF seats for Lubanseshi, Kabushi, Kwacha, Chimwemwe, Nakonde and Lunte, constituencies.
