Petition election results, ECZ challenges HH

THE Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) has challenged UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema to petition the presidential election result in the Supreme Court if he is not satisfied with the result.
ECZ director Priscilla Isaac said in a statement yesterday that Mr Hichilema could exercise his democratic right to petition the result rather than maligning the electoral body when every effort was made to ensure transparency in the results’ management process.
Following persistent allegations by Mr Hichilema that his votes in the just ended election were stolen, ECZ verified all the election results from 150 constituencies contrary to UPND leader’s claim.
She said the countrywide counting and collation of results at all the polling stations and constituency centers was transparent  and open to all accredited polling agents, elections agents, local monitors and international observers.
The polling agents, election agents and local monitors were also entitled to sign the results’ announcement forms and retain copies from each polling station and collation centre for their respective parties and organisations.
UPND officials had requested to participate in the verification of election results at the National Results Centre at Mulungushi International conference Centre for 29 constituencies and this was granted and also witnessed by two officials from the Patriotic Front (PF).
Prior to the request, the UPND had presented the Commission with its schedule of collated results for the initial 121 constituencies that had already been verified by the Commission, claiming that they had noticed some discrepancies.
Following concerns about election result discrepancies, ECZ re-verified results for five constituencies namely; Serenje, Mukushi South, Itezhi-Tezhi Mwembezhi and Lupososhi, for which the UPND collated results were inaccurate.
“The UPND officials acknowledged the anomalies on their schedule and it was confirmed that ECZ’s schedule was the correct record of election results for each constituency,” Ms Isaac added.

[Times of Zambia]