Africa-Press – Zambia. Former Kabushi Member of Parliament Bowman Lusambo says he is not shocked that the High Court threw out his petition in which he sought nullification of the election of United Party for National Development – UPND Bernard Kanengu as Kabushi Member of Parliament.
Mr Lusambo who is also the former Lusaka Province Minister mentioned that he is aware that some government officials were allegedly being threatened hence, not working freely.
“Am not shocked and disturbed with the outcome of the Ndola High Court’s doing, as a politician am not worried and am not shocked because I know what is going on in the country where officers in government are being threatened, as they don’t want them to be independent and work freely, they want them to be controlled, that as a Zambian, and former Member of Parliament for Kabushi Constituency and former Minister of this country, am worried because we need to protect the Constitution of our country, we need to protect in short the rule of law, democracy which our forefathers fought for and also we need to protect the human rights,” he explained
He added that the issue at hand is the fact that he was prevented from re-constenting the Kabushi parliamentary seat. “As a former Minister, and former lawmaker am very worried because what we took to court, we went to court with facts, we were not befishing because we didn’t go to court to fish, we went to court with facts and we expected the court to preside over these facts, we didn’t go to court to lie,” he said
“The issue at hand is the issue to do with prevention, where you prevented to stand in Kabushi constituency during the by-elections? My answer is yes, why am I saying yes, am saying yes because the issue at hand was presided over the Constitutional Court where they said that nullification does not amount to disqualification that was enough and this judgment came in March, and we went to Kabushi in August and we told the court that the Electoral Commission of Zambia error, and this issue at hand is this, so we went to the High Court because that is where the matters to do with petition of an election is supposed to go to, so from the High Court we go to the Constitutional Court,” he added
Mr Lusambo alluded that their predict in the High Court, they where 100 percent on the firm ground because they were talking about things which are there, things which can be seen, adding that he is not comfortable with the judgment passed by the Ndola High Court neither does he accept it.
“The Chief Executive Officer of the Electoral Commission of Zambia came to reaffirm what we told the court, so we are very surprised that we had that type of judgment,” he said
Mr Lusambo has since assured that the case is still ongoing as they are going to the Constitutional Court, as this is a direct and straight forward case, adding that this case only needs about two hours to preside over and a verdict is given.
On Tuesday January 4th 2023, the Ndola High Court ruled that a by-election in Kabushi Constituency was legally held. High Court Judge Ruth Chibabuka said as shown in the petition, the alleged contraversion indicated that the by-election Mr Lusambo had the election voided at the basis of the rejection of his nomination papers.
Meanwhile, Mr Lusambo said that he will support any presidential candidate capable of ensuring victory for the former ruling party the Patriotic Front – PF in the 2026 general elections.
“For me I will support any candidate I will see fit that this candidate will take us back into the government,” he said
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