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The New Heritage Party (NHP) has called for the immediate abolition of all nomination fees, charges and other costs imposed on Zambians wishing to participate in elections either as members of political parties or as individuals.
Party president, Chishala Kateka, proposed that these should be abolished forthwith, certainly before the next general elections in 2026.
Kateka made the demand in a statement issued in Lusaka and accessed by Zambia Monitor on Friday.
She said the demand was based on the fact that the nomination fees, charges and other costs are actually illegal, unconstitutional, redundant and anti-democratic.
“As the current situation of fees and other costs subsists, the majority of our people, mostly the youth, the women, the disabled and other disadvantaged groups and individuals who cannot afford to participate to be elected to position of leadership of their choice, are denied their right to stand,” Kateka said.
She claimed that this also denied their supporters the opportunity to vote in positions the candidates of their choice, as candidates end up being only the wealthiest, regardless of their unsuitability or indeed how they came about the said wealth.
Kateka said the requirement to meet a certain financial threshold to be able to participate in elections also posed a security risk to the country.
“It allows for vested malign forces, both within the country and more so outside the country to be able to meddle and influence the outcomes of the elections and future government decisions, from a beholden leadership,” she said.
Kateka said Articles 27 and 37 of the Bill of Rights and 75 of the Zambian Constitution gives every adult Zambian citizen the right to participate in political activities and to vote.
She further argued that this right was without discrimination or conditions bordering on the social economic status of those being voted for.
“We wonder why the ECZ would presume to introduce such regulations to violate the constitution with such impunity,” said the NHP leader.
Kateka said it was an anti- democratic act not dissimilar to the colonial rule of insisting on only a select few Africans to sit in the lower native assembly based on their social status and wealth.
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