May 27, 2019

Zambian DNA advises the opposition political parties to draw lessons from their South African counterpart who congratulated African National Congress (ANC)’s Cyril Ramaphosa for scooping the polls with over 57 percent of the vote.

But some Zambian political parties run to the ‘Ant Hill’ whenever they lose elections to cry foul alleging that the polls were a sham with manipulated results in favour of the winner.

This is evident with the 2016 election in which President Edgar Lungu was declared winner, but a known opposition party leader has still not accepted the results which is not supposed to be the case in a democracy.

However, as the clock ticks towards the 2021 polls, we expect the would-be winners to be magnanimous to accept victory as well as the losers to gracefully concede defeat.

Indeed, conceding defeat (as South African opposition political parties did) is one of the tenets of democratic elections as failure to do so defies the principles and values of democratic elections.

We urge political party leaders and their supporters willing to participate in the forthcoming 2021 elections to be emotionally and physically prepared for the election outcome, and refrain from being over-confident.

More so, we advise opposition political parties that are not ready to accept the election outcome to step aside as the country should move forward, and not held at ransom by an individual struggling to recuperate from the trauma of election loss.

Issued by:

ZAMBIAN DNA SPOKES PERSON

SPUKI MULEMWA