SANGWA ‘FIX’ DOOMED HIS ATTEMPT TO ‘FIX’ LUNGU WON’T WORK

By PETER SICHALI and KETRA KALUNGA NO matter how many times or methods he uses to petition, lawyer John Sangwa will not suc-ceed with his attempts to stop President Edgar Lungu from contesting the August 12 election because his case lacks merits, two Lusaka-based lawyers have said. Mr Makebi Zulu and Mr Jonas Zimba have both contended that his desperate attempts to block President Edgar Lungu from contesting the elections will end in defeat. Desperate attempts by Mr Sangwa to block President Edgar Lungu from contesting August 12 general elections will not succeed, Mr Zim-ba said. And Mr Zulu, the former Eastern Province min-ister said Mr Sangwa was not able to marshal up any better argument on President Lungu’s el-igibility. Mr Zulu said in an interview that Mr Sangwa has lost it and shown that he has no muscle to argue the eligibility issue. Mr Zulu said Mr Sangwa was not capable of coming up with fresh arguments on the eligibil-ity debate because the issue had been settled. He advised Mr Sangwa to concentrate on other productive issues because he has failed to pre-sent better arguments to the court on the matter. “I am only hoping that next time he goes to court, he has better arguments because that is-sue is a settled matter,” he said. Mr Zulu advised Mr Sangwa to ensure that whatever he takes to court was not vexatious before the court. Mr Sangwa is quoted in the media saying the is-sue of President Lungu’s eligibility was not yet over and that the dismissed petition had nothing to do with the eligibility. He had petitioned the court to order the Elec-toral commission of Zambia (ECZ) to amend the affidavit for Presidential candidates to in-clude the number of times the candidate has held office as President. Meanwhile, Mr Zimba said the eligibility mat-ter was a dead issue and that it was high time Mr Sangwa concentrated on other matters of national importance. He said the Constitutional Court was the final court and no other court would handle that which has already been settled by the constitu-tional court. On Thursday, Mr Sangwa walked out of the court a gloomy man after the Constitutional Court dismissed his petition where he wanted the court to direct the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) to amend the affidavit for Presi-dential candidates/Running mates to state the number of years one has served. Mr Sangwa wanted the affidavit to include a paragraph saying “I have not twice held office as President” for it to comply with article 106 (3). But Mr Sangwa has insisted that the dismissed petition had nothing to do with the eligibility case and warned that the matter was not yet over.