28/12/2024
GUEST ARTICLE: No one is blocking anyone for FAZ elections but the law
By The Mast Newspapers
When the Kabwe High Court last week sentenced former minister of infrastructure Ronald Chitotela to 10 years imprisonment for arson and related electoral violence, there was anguish and relief on two fronts. Anguish because Chitotela's family has lost a breadwinner and family head to 10 long years without the freedom to solve those pertinent family issues. Relief because the individuals and families whom the Chitotela brothers traumatised during that episode of political violence, including the driver of the burnt Mahindra vehicle who escaped torching by a whisker, now have closure, they got their justice. To the neutrals, at least the law has been respected going forward. And just like that, Chitotela's political career has crushed to death because now, and in future he remains a convicted criminal. Sad to mention, but that's how the law classifies people convicted of grave crimes such as arson - criminals.
In the words of the minister of transport who is also a lawyer, Frank Tayali, when commiserating with Chitotela's jailing, he said: "...unfortunately the law is blind to status, to fame, to someone's office. This is a reminder to all of us that law is law."
And this is the same thing we are faced with in FAZ. People want to propagate an agenda that Andrew Kamanga has manufactured laws to block his competitors in the next FAZ elections. There is a calculated campaign to portray a picture that there is no law that governs FAZ elections, that everything happens at Kamangaβs behest. That the man can just wake up and decide that he doesn't want this one and that one and it comes to pass.
It is actually very disturbing to listen to National Sports Council of Zambia (NSCZ) director Sombwa Musunsa speak about this "blocking" others, without any specific reference to which piece of legislation in a particular constitution has been altered to arrive at his conclusion