Stealing Voters’ Cards From Eligible Voters is Undemocratic, UPND Tells PF

UPND National Chairman, Mutale Nalumango says the tendency by known PF elements of grabbing voters’ cards from eligible voters in the 2021 elections is undemocratic and a criminal act.

Speaking on ABN Today Bemba programme yesterday, Ms Nalumango said the trend was unacceptable and called on the police and ECZ to take action.

“Don’t allow anyone to get your voters card. It is criminal and sinful for the PF to be grabbing voters’ cards from registered voters. If you allow them to do that, they are stealing your democratic right to vote,” she said.

Ms Nalumango further added that the staging of the registration process during the rainy farming season had disadvantaged many rural citizens most of whom were farmers and depend on farming for their livelihood.

“We have made a mistake by putting the exercise during the farming period and most farmers are finding it hard to queue for days to acquire voters’ cards when they have to go out and prepare their maize fields. And what has made this situation worse is a situation where PF cadres are grabbing voters’ cards from them as well as chasing them from markets if they don’t have a voters’ card. The best thing that we were supposed to have done in order to protect our people from being inconvenienced is making the process quick,” she said.

The UPND leader said the allocated number of days for the on-going voter registration exercise scheduled to end on 12th December were not enough to capture the targeted 9 million voters as she questioned the closure of most NRC centres in the country which in the process desfranchises would be voters.

She has since appealed to the elections body to increase the number of days for voter registration.

This article originally appeared on Lusaka Times