Tonse to report UPND to ECZ

By NATION REPORTER THE Tonse-Pamodzi Alliance has announced that it will lodge a complaint with the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) against the UPND for violating the electoral calendar and code of conduct by holding campaign activities in areas designated for the opposition, Daniel Chisenga has said. Mr Chisenga, who is backed by the Tonse-Pamodzi Alliance says his campaign team had resorted to what he described as “guerrilla” tactics to reach voters following an attack on its campaigners last week. The people of Mandevu will choose their Member of Parliament on November 5, after the electoral body cancelled the poll on August 13, when the entire nation was voting. “After we were savagely attacked by the UPND cadres during our campaigns in Mandevu in which some of our members were badly beaten and others abducted, we are now campaigning in fear. We are unable to hold rallies in our venues and in accordance with the ECZ calendar. We have now adopted the guerrilla type of campaign…where you appear and disappear, which is not good,” Mr Chisenga said. Mr Chisenga, who is standing on the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) as a special purpose vehicle for the Tonse Pamodzi Alliance, said the opposition would not be intimidated into abandoning the campaign by the violence being perpetrated by the UPND. He has however, appealed to police to provide security to the Tonse Pamodzi Alliance campaign teams alleging that the response to previous calls for assistance had sometimes been slow. Mr Chisenga said his team had previously been forced to abandon campaigns in Mandevu after allegedly failing to receive timely police assistance. “We will continue to campaign and we are determined to deliver our message despite the intimidation because we know the UPND is using violence to campaign. That has been their strategy...to instil fear, intimidate people so that probably there is voter apathy,” Mr Chisenga said in an interview. Mr Chisenga said his team was compiling video evidence, which showed UPND members holding a meeting at a venue where his campaigners had allegedly been attacked the previous day. He said the material would form part of a complaint to the ECZ, which would face a major test in the Mandevu parliamentary re-run. Mr Chisenga said the opposition was currently “campaigning in fear” and sometimes had to operate underground because of intimidation by UPND zealots.

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