By ESTHER NG’ANDU –
THE Democratic Governance and Human Rights Advocacy (DEGHA) has said that sending political party representatives to monitor the printing of ballot papers for the August 11 general elections should remove suspicions of rigging.
DEGHA president Gerald Mutelo said in an interview yesterday that such a move by the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) showed its transparency and accountability in holding free and fair elections.
Mr Mutelo said ECZ had held free and fair elections in the past without any confusion and that this year’s elections were not the first ones, hence the need for all political parties and independent candidates not to criticise the Commission.
“There is no difference between the previous elections and the current ones. Therefore, no political party should accuse the other that there will be rigging this year. It is not true and the electorate should not be demoralised by such lies,” Mr Mutelo said.
He said there was need for all political parties to always interact with the ECZ as it was the body governing elections and, if they had queries, they should consult before coming up with speculations that would affect  the peace and unity of the country.
Mr Mutelo said political parties should also ask their cadres to have confidence in the ECZ and that the rumour going round that the ruling party would rig elections was not true.
“As DEGHA our appeal is that all political parties saying this year’s elections will be unfair should stop and they should urge their cadres to have confidence in the ECZ, because such lies will cause panic among the electorate, hence disenfranchising a lot of people as they will not exercise their constitutional right to vote,” Mr Mutelo said.