HH Demands Voter Registration Extension, Accuses PF Of Rigging Elections

United Party for National Development (UPND) leader Hakainde Hichilema has demanded an immediate extension to the ongoing voter registration exercise to allow every eligible Zambian to register to vote. 

Speaking at a press conference in Lusaka on Thursday, Mr Hichilema also called on the Electoral Commission of Zambia to provide additional manpower and registration equipment to polling stations in order to avoid potentially disenfranchising millions of Zambians.

“Extend the voter registration not by a month, not by two months but until all the eligible voters are registered. After all, the Electoral Act of 2016 is clear that there must be a continuous voter registration exercise. Even the 30 days was against the law,” he demanded.

It follows weeks of poor performance by the ECZ in attempting to capture a targeted 9 million voters in just 33 days before 12th December. 

Reports have flooded in from across the country of long queues at registration centres, often lasting hours, as well as a lack of manpower and technological faults, frequently resulting from a lack of mobile generators to combat load shedding. 

Mr Hichilema surmised that the botched voter registration exercise - coupled with the failure to adequately issue National Registration Cards earlier in the year - was a ploy by the Patriotic Front government to rig the 2021 elections.

“The PF is sabotaging the 2021 elections by issuing NRCs to people in selected provinces and this is undoubtedly a rigging scheme. Rigging elections is not only done during voting day, the way the PF is disadvantaging deserving Zambians from acquiring NRCs is rigging. We don’t want to be duped this way,” Hichilema charged.

He further accused ECZ chairperson Esau Chulu of failing to deliver on his pledge to register between 8.5 to 9 million voters. Current estimates predict that the ECZ will only manage to capture approximately 3 million Zambians by next week’s deadline.

Finally, Hichilema called on the government to immediately mobilise resources for the ECZ to complete its registration process.

“Those who are controlling public resources must release those resources to the ECZ so that they can register more voters. The owners of the resources are saying, ‘take our resources to all the 10 provinces so that we can acquire NRCs and voters cards,” he said.

HH speaking at the UPND Secretariat building in Lusaka on Thursday morning