Mansa Central voting on today

THE countdown has finally ended for the Mansa Central parliamentary by-election today as 88, 943 registered voters take to the booths to elect their next representative.

The Mansa Central Constituency seat fell vacant following the death of Patriotic Front (PF) Member of Parliament (MP) Kennedy Sakeni, who was Information and Broadcasting Services minister.

Five political party candidates would be seeking to reign supreme when the counting of ballot papers takes off after the closure of voting scheduled to take place from 06:00 hours to 18:00 hours.

The candidates vying for the parliamentary seat include Chitalu Chilufya of the ruling PF, United Party for National Development’s Rosemary Mwiche and Alfred Mwape from Forum for Democracy and Development.

The rest are Malama Kapolyo and Charles Mwelwa of MMD and UNIP, respectively.

Mansa District Electoral Officer David Bwalya said all was set for the successful holding of the election.

Mr Bwalya, who expressed happiness at the peaceful manner in which political parties conducted their campaigns, said everything was in place to ensure smooth voting.

“The campaigns have been peaceful and I want to commend participating political parties for the mature manner in which they have conducted themselves, especially that we have not recorded any adverse incidences this far.

“Mansa Central has nine wards with 70 polling stations against 88, 943 registered voters,” Mr Bwalya said.

He said all the voting logistics were being finalised yesterday, including the deployment of election staff to their respective polling stations.

“Just this morning, (yesterday) we had a meeting with the district political liaison committee to spell out electoral rules and regulations, so we hope all is going to be well going forward,” he said.

[Times]