Africa-Press – Zambia. THE Constitutional Court of Zambia has this morning declared Lumezi Parliamentary Candidate as duly elected Member for Lumezi Constituency. The Court said Mr Zulu it cannot find any evidence to warrant overturning the election after determining that Ms Chisulo Zelipa who had challenged the election failed to prove that the Lumezi lawmaker has no Grade 12 Certificate and participated in the bribery of voters during the 2021 General elections.
In a sharp turn from its previous ruling in the Malanji case, the Court firmly stated that the burden to prove that a candidate has no Grade 12 squarely lies on the alleger and not the Respondent.
The Court says it was satisfied that, even if the evidential burden was to shift to Mr Zulu, the Lumezi lawmaker clearly proved he had a Grade 12 Certificate which made the Electoral Commission of Zambia accept his nomination.
According to the Court, Munir Zulu had shown that he was born in 1987 and completed his education at LICEF contrary to some purported and unverified evidence obtained by Ms Chisulo from social media that the Grade 12 certificate issued in 1988 belonged to Mr Zulu.
The Court also said there was no merit in the allegations that Mr Zulu participated in malpractices and bribery in Lumezi Constituency by merely promising that he was going to make donations to the people of Lumezi.
The Constitutional Court also said that challenging nomination of candidates must be done within the time provided by the Constitution. The Court dismissed all the allegations that were levelled against the Lumezi lawmaker as lacking merit and ordered that each party must bear own costs.
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