Friday January 23, 2015 ECZ REFUSES TO BE INTIMIDATED UPND cadres yesterday besieged the ECZ offices where suspected white people specialised in hacking were infiltrated to manipulate the results. A subsequent search of the premises proved futile as the attempted hacking turned out to be a hoax. Meanwhile police officers were deployed at the offices to prevent any further disruption and to ensure that they conducted their work in a peaceful and tranquil atmosphere But ECZ chairperson condemned the siege and described it as an attempt to interfere with the work of the commission because the charges were baseless and a clear abrogation of law for the ECZ to discharge its mandate. And Justice said it was an act of desperation that the ECZ would be accused to manipulate the electoral process on behalf of the ruling party because the commission was independent and exercise its authority with impartiality. And ECZ Director General, Priscilla Isaacs, lamented the harassment she suffered at the hands of UPND and PF Senior officials and their cadres who either barged into her office or questioned the work that the Commission was doing. It was frustrating she said that cadres did not seem to appreciate that a lot of work went into election planning and execution and that those Zambians who served the commission did so because of a commitment to nation building. ECZ chairperson Justice Irene Mambilima said it was shocking that after the Commission suspended the announcement of the results on Wednesday to avoid creating undue influence on people who were still voting where polling materials and personnel were delayed to be delivered, a leader of a named political party stormed the tallying center and demanded that the commission should halt receiving votes. Justice Mambilima it was worrying that the suspicion of the election being rigged by political parties had reached unreasonable levels and urged politicians to have confidence in the country’s electoral system. She Zambia would not be able to advance its democracy if politicians would continue being suspicious that the electoral system was favouring a particular or preferred candidate in each election. She said when the Commission announced the electronic transmission of results, political parties resisted even the piloting of the project on suspicion that the system could easily be hacked or results could be tampered with. Justice Mambilima disclosed that a leader of a named political party stormed the tallying centre at about 01 hours yesterday charging that since the commission had stopped announcing results, there was no need for them to continue receiving results. “The unreasonable level of suspicion that the election is going to be rigged by political party leaders has reached frightening levels. Yesterday, we suspended the announcement of the presidential election results to avoid creating undue influence on the people who were still voting in 51 polling stations across the country. Surprisingly, some leaders of a political party came here soon after we had just left and demanded that we stop receiving results on account that we had stopped announcing the results. Why come at 01 hours just after we had left. That kind of behavior is not on. Let us do our work,” Justice Mambilima said. And Justice Mambilima said that PVT is the modern form of collecting and determining election results but was concerned that the system was sadly being abused by some online publications which were alarming the country. She said the Commission was aware that some people carrying out PVT were not in all polling stations and that their results were merely based on sampling of the results from selected areas. Justice Mambilima stated that it was dangerous to spread speculation to the public because there was a danger in raising people’s emotions if their candidate failed to win the election after it was speculated that he or she had won the election. She those who were speculating about the presidential results were mischief makers warning that it was not right to peddle lies about election results.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 07:39:18 +0000
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