3 November 2008
editorial
THAT the Foundation for Democratic Process (FODEP) has not found any evidence of result manipulation in the just-ended Presidential election shows that the democracy that Zambia has embraced is growing and should be nurtured.
As the story that we carry on the front page in today's edition states, results from an independent Parallel Vote Tabulation conducted by FODEP are consistent with the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) official results.
This is a sign that it is possible to perfect the electoral process if only the ECZ and stakeholders such as political parties and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) like FODEP continue consulting on how best to achieve that.
In order for Zambia to perfect the electoral process, the ECZ and other players need to continually analyse the system and see the areas that require improvement.
While the transmission and accuracy of the results was perfect, some problems were noted. One of the problems that emerged was the apathy that characterised this election, limiting the number of people who cast the ballot.
Although the turnout of 45.43 per cent, representing 1,791,806 of the registered 3,944,135 cannot be said to be very bad, it is abundantly clear that Zambia could do better than that if only the ECZ could embark on continuous voters' registration.
That is why the advice of stakeholders such as Zambia Democratic Conferencenational chairperson, Langton Sichone, on this matter needs to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
As Mr Sichone, who is also Zambia Centre for Inter-party Dialogue spokesperson says in a story also carried in this edition, voter participation stands to be greatly boosted if only people can be captured on the roll immediately they reach the voting age.
It is time this important issue of continuous registration of voters moved from just an item on the agenda to the implementation stage.
The first stage towards implementing this proposal is for the ECZ to treat it as a priority and put this across to all the cooperating partners who have been assisting the institution.
The conduct of the just-ended election has done Zambia proud and the country could further improve the electoral process by putting in place deliberate measures to capture more people on the voters' roll.
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