The Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC) Bishop Director for Caritas, Rt Rev Evans Chinyemba, OMI has asked the faith based organization monitoring groups to start preparing for the process for that the outcome of the election depends very much on the fairness and integrity of the entire electoral process before and to the voting day.
Speaking at the launch of the Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG) on Friday, 11thSeptember, 2015, the Catholic Bishop Chinyemba who is also the Bishop of Mongu said that CCMG from now onwards to the period of tripartite elections, which is in 2016, have to monitor, document and publicize political activities in the electoral process which will also include Voter Registration, the legal framework, and the general campaign environment.
Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC) through its Caritas department will be in the group of Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG) for monitoring of the election. Other members in group include; Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ), Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFZ) and the Jesuit Center for Theological Reflection (JCTR).
Bishop Chinyemba, further expressed his concern over lack of intolerance among politicians across political parties saying Zambia is a multiparty democracy with opportunities for freedom of expression and association.
He also appealed to the media to exert its professional ethics and avail the public with quality and objective information that will help the voters make informed choices during elections adding that the media must not hire itself to be a forum for politicians to insult each other and slander as this will not benefit voters in any way in knowing what the candidates stand for.
CCMG will place 110 highly trained district monitors across the country with a few towns that are highly populated having more than one monitors per district at polling stations to observe the voting process including conducting Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) of the Presidential Poll.
Christian Church Monitoring Group (CCMG) has received financial support from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) for monitoring work as well as technical assistance from the National Democratic Institute (NDI).
By Mwenya Mukuka, Communications Officer ZEC
