By GIDEON NYENDWA
THE Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) will soon embark on a thorough review of the electoral law to make sure there is integrity of the process, ECZ corporate affairs manager Patricia Luhanga has said.
Ms. Luhanga said that the commission together with various stakeholders will soon embark on a thorough review of the electoral law in order to enhance the electoral process.
She said that article 52(6) of the constitution may not be the only piece of legislation that needed to be reviewed; there must be others and that was why there was need to look at it holistically to make sure that the electoral process was enhanced.
Ms. Luhanga said that the electoral process was one thing needed to be critically looked at so resources of the country could be utilized for other developmental issues that go back to the same things all the time.
She said that the chief electoral officer advised political parties to strictly scrutinize the candidate they fielded so that a repeat of what happened in the Kabwata by-election should not be repeated.
Meanwhile Ms. Luhanga also clarified that contrally to questions being raised by different stakeholders asking whether or not the commission would still use the same ballot papers that had already been printed for the Kabwata by-election, the communion cannot do that.
She said that there was a procedure that the commission followed to destroy ballot papers that had already been printed and then the election was cancelled.
Ms. Luhanga said that the commission could never use the same ballots because they have a candidate that resigned and also there would be new faces from other political parties that would field candidates that did not manage to do it in the first filing of the nomination.
She said this in a televised interview.
The Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) canceled the Kabwata Parliamentary by-election pursuant to article 52 (6) of the republican constitution after the the withdrawal of Mr. Francis Libanda of the UPP from the election.
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