Africa-Press – Zambia. The Zambia Centre for Interparty Dialogue (ZCID) has noted with regret the withdrawal of the United Progressive Party (UPP) Kabwata Constituency parliamentary by-election candidate, Mr. Francis Libanda and the subsequent cancellation of the by-election by the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ).
Much as it is within the constitutional right of any candidate to withdraw from an election race, the repercussions are negative, it is a drain of national resources.This entails that new ballot papers have to be printed, new nomination fees and more campaign funds by candidates and political parties making the exercise too costly.
As a Centre, we would like to call for an urgent review of both the Electoral Process Act and the Republican Constitution in order to prevent such occurrences which are retrogressive and time consuming. We further call on the Government and stakeholders to embrace this matter with the urgency it deserves.
Going forward there is need to ensure that the withdrawal of one particular candidate does not affect the rest of the contenders. The elections must proceed and sanctions have to be applied to the withdrawing candidate. We also strongly urge the political parties to seriously screen aspiring candidates to avoid such misguided occurrences before the law is amended.
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