CANDIDATES PLEDGED TO ABIDE BY BINDING ELECTORAL CODE, PEACE ACCORD UNNECESSARY

Dear Editor, THE Zambia Centre for Interparty Dialogue (ZCID), the church and other stakeholders have come up with the initiative of bringing political parties on the round table and sign the peace accord. The initiative is said to be an undertaking by political parties especially candidates to ensure that they conduct their political activities in a peaceful manner. Peace accords are not new to Zambia and they have been signed before and relegated to a mere paper that has no effect the recent one being in March, 2010. In case some people have forgotten, on March 24, 2019, two main political parties namely; the Patriotic  Front (PF) and the United Party for National Development  (UPND) represented by their respective Secretary Generals in the presence of then Deputy Inspector General of police Bonny Kapeso, signed the peace accord to end political violence. The agreement was published in the state run media houses by the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) and endorsed by then Home Affairs Minister Stephen Kampyongo. This agreement had among other things; an undertaking by political parties to coexist and demilitarise their respective youth wings. Since then President Edgar Lungu has openly denounced violence and from time to time called on police to fully enforce the law. Since there is no binding effect of the accord, there are no mechanisms for enforcement or consequences arising from the non-adherence to the accord. Violence has been taking place and it has been business as usual with the recent one being the opposition orchestrated class were the UPND militants chased after the PF supporters along Kasangula Road in Mandevu constituency. The political parties had the opportunity to abide by the moral duty to respect their own agreement through the March, 2019 Peace Accord. Now that elections are in full swing we are made to believe that the Electoral Code of conduct which candidates swore to observe if respected to the letter, then peaceful polls are guaranteed. Moreover, unlike the hurriedly drafted peace accord which imposes a mere moral obligation, the Electoral Code is legally binding and enforceable with punitive measures on those who violates it. Moreover, both the Church mother bodies and other proponents of the peace accord do not have the legal mandate to enforce the code. It is therefore illogical for political parties to parade themselves as proponent of peace to sign the peace accord when they already have the binding electoral code. Let the political parties especially their candidates revisit the electoral code and a peaceful poll shall be assured. MARVIN CHANDA MBERI, Lusaka.