Chongwe East MP’s Election Challenged Over Alleged Malpractice

Losing United Party for National Development (UPND) parliamentary candidate Sylvia Masebo has told the Lusaka High Court that Anita Kamanga’s election as Chongwe East Member of Parliament was marred by malpractices that swayed voters against her. The claim came in her reply and…

Losing United Party for National Development (UPND) parliamentary candidate Sylvia Masebo has told the Lusaka High Court that Anita Kamanga’s election as Chongwe East Member of Parliament was marred by malpractices that swayed voters against her. The claim came in her reply and skeleton arguments, filed in response to answers already submitted by Kamanga and the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ). She maintains the August 13 election was not conducted in a free and fair atmosphere, and that she polled 6,798 votes against Kamanga’s 16,058.

The petition accuses Kamanga’s camp of corruption, bribery and name-calling during the campaign. It alleges that Kamanga’s agents disseminated false and defamatory statements about Ms Masebo, prejudicing her candidature and improperly influencing voters. It further claims Kamanga urged voters against her by pointing out that she had lost the UPND adoption process and had only been adopted as a candidate through her standing in the party. On that basis, Ms Masebo wants the election declared null and void and the ECZ directed to re-run the poll.

Kamanga and the ECZ have separately urged the court to dismiss the petition and let the result stand. The commission maintains the poll was free and fair, and that Kamanga was duly elected with her 16,058 votes to Ms Masebo’s 6,798.

“The elections were free and fair and the first respondent was and is the duly elected MP for Chongwe East Constituency,” the commission said.

In her own response, Kamanga denied the allegations outright, saying neither she nor her agents committed, authorised or permitted violence, intimidation, threats or harassment against Ms Masebo or her supporters. She dismissed the bribery and vote-buying claims as vague and fabricated, denying that she ever distributed gifts to induce voters. Kamanga added that she had spent more than five years before the election engaged in charitable and community welfare work in the constituency, through an NGO and with well-wishers.

Ms Masebo was not moved by that account. In her skeleton arguments, she maintained that the election was characterised by malpractices that turned voters against her, and that Kamanga’s campaign breached the Electoral Process Act and the Electoral Code of Conduct. She pointed out that some of the alleged misconduct, including remarks attributed to Kamanga and her campaign manager, Amos Malubila, had already been raised before the ECZ’s own conflict management committee.

Those earlier complaints, she argued, form part of the factual basis of her election petition. She has stood by her position that Kamanga’s election should be nullified and fresh polls held under the ECZ. The matter remains before the Lusaka High Court, one of several constituency results being contested by unsuccessful candidates since the general election, with no date yet set for a ruling.