Race for poll places hots up

The governing party in Zambia, the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD), has started the process of selecting candidates for the forthcoming general election, as speculation mounts that the poll could be called earlier than anticipated.

The party is emphasising transparency and allowing its lower echelons a greater say in the selection, and is proceeding at a brisk pace.

By now, applications from prospective candidates for parliamentary and local government seats should have been received at the constituency level.

National secretary Major Richard Kachingwe said applications had to be in at that level by Friday.

Provincial committees are required to submit their lists to the national headquarters by Thursday.

Constituency, district and provincial committees will have the main input in the selection, while a panel of the National Executive Committee (NEC) will review the provincial lists next weekend and adopt the national one. The party has indicated that applications from women and the youth are particularly welcome.

On paper, the process seems innocuous and straight-forward enough. In practice, political parties have sometimes shot themselves in the foot at this stage.

Members of parliament (MPs), especially those who are resident in urban areas but represent rural constituencies, do not have a particularly good record among the electorate.

They have the reputation of "disappearing" until the next election once they are elected.

Thus, the pressure from locals for one of their own to be adopted is considerable. When those are not chosen, they have come under pressure to stand as independents and have often won easily.

MMD president Rupiah Banda appears to be well aware of the pitfalls and has emphasised that the selection process will be "very transparent".

He has said that members who are in good standing with the party had nothing to fear.

"Of course you cannot expect George Mpombo, former defence minister, or Mike Mulongoti, former works and supply minister, to stand on the MMD ticket. They have been talking ill of the party. Any other member who is in good standing is free to aspire to parliamentary and local government seats," he said.

The party would not, however, accept applications from anyone convicted of a crime.

"We anticipate a lot of competition, especially now that the MMD is very popular because of the work the government is doing. A lot of people want to stand on the MMD ticket.

"However, unfortunately we can only have one person per constituency or ward. Some people will obviously cry foul, but there has to be democracy," he said.

Perhaps because of the age of its presidential candidate, the MMD seems particularly anxious that young people should apply. "It is important that the youth stop listening to people telling them that they have no future because youth have a bright future," Banda said.

"If there are any queries on the application process, members can seek clarification from the party secretariat. Aspiring candidates only have 10 days to apply because this is a busy period," he said.

His remarks reinforced those of the party's deputy national secretary, Chembe Nyangu, who has said that the party had no preferred candidates and appealed to members not to be intimidated by anyone during the adoption process.

All party members were free to apply without feeling intimidated and the party would insist on clean campaigning for adoption.

He disclosed that the party had received "very disturbing reports that some senior party members, mostly those serving as MPs, were spreading false rumours that Banda had preferred candidates to stand as MPs in the forthcoming elections."

He said such claims were "baseless and unfounded".

"The MMD would like to re-affirm the party president's address to the media on June 1 2011, that the grassroots would decide who should be their parliamentary candidates and this is the current official position of the party," he said.

The party will certainly gain some political mileage through being transparent and allowing the locals a greater say.