By STEVEN ZANDE –
THE Zambia Centre for Inter-party Dialogue (ZCID) in partnership with the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD) has committed to deploy 27,000 polling agents to monitor next week’s general elections.
The ZCID has also implored political parties taking part in the elections to desist from engaging in acts that have the potential to compromise the outcome of the August 11 poll results.
The polling agents drawn from various political parties were selected following a series of workshops held across the country to prepare them to monitor the elections.
This is according to a statement issued by ZCID board chairperson, Walusiku Liambela in Lusaka yesterday.
“Let us once again show the world that we are a peaceful and democratic sovereign State by saying no to election malpractice and political violence,” Captain Liambela said.
She said qualified election monitors were crucial to curbing misrepresentation of information during and after the elections.
Capt Liambela said this was because this year’s elections would be highly contested, hence the need for enhanced credibility in the flow of information to ensure stakeholders accepted the results.
She said, among other interventions, the ZCID had assisted political parties to build a database of their polling agents to help them access and organise them in readiness for taking up their duties.
The ZCID and the NIMD would ensure that political parties had the necessary capacity to monitor the elections through technical assistants that had been attached to all contesting political parties.