POLITICAL parties intending to field presidential candidates in the January 20, 2015 presidential election should take the warning by the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) seriously.
They should heed the advice for them to put their houses in order, ahead of the nomination period, to prevent the current intra-party conflicts from spilling over into the national electoral process.
It is sad to note that all major political parties, save for the United Party for National Development (UPND), are engulfed into some intra-party malaise of one form or another.
The oldest political party in the country, United National Independency Party (UNIP), the immediate past ruling party, Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) and the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) are all enmeshed in uncertainty about their respective presidential candidates.
We are wary that the confusion could partly be effects of internal democracy or lack of it, but democracy has never been synonymous with political pandemonium which confuses the sympathisers, let alone voters.
The current political manoeuvers by people who are jostling for Republican presidency are capable of scaring away the voters from the electoral process, thereby causing voter apathy.
At its worst, the current squabbles can easily lead to a scenario where some of the political parties may ultimately fail to field candidates.
In so doing, the warring potential candidates may defeat the very essence of the project in which they have invested massive time and resources in the past one month or so.
Of what good could an internal victory which will not enable one to even stand as presidential candidate for the respective political party be?
There is need for all the parties and individuals involved in the current political struggles internally to count the cost of denying their political parties the opportunity to field candidates.
Is it worth it to continue fighting fellow parties officials up to the time of nomination thereby giving away the opportunity to have party representation in the elections?
Which one is worse? to have a fellow party official vie for the Republican presidency and possibly win or give a chance to candidates from other political parties by failing to field your own?
Are some aspiring candidates ready to sacrifice their respective parties for their own personal positions? Why are they not ready to sacrifice their positions for the sake of party unity and order?
These and many other questions should for now exercise the minds of all those involved in the current political differences.
Each political party intending to take part in the election should consider itself as a mere player in this process and, therefore, its preparedness or unpreparedness would not affect the timeframe of the election.
As correctly indicated by the Commission, this presidential election has to take place within the 90-day period after the demise of President Michael Sata.
This means that the election can never be moved to any day beyond January 26, 2015 which is the 90th day after Mr Sata’s death on account of one or more participants not being ready.
Therefore, political parties and candidates who will fail to file their nominations will have themselves to blame for that because they have had enough time to put their houses in order.
Having said that, we would also want to commend the ECZ for the timely warning to the political parties and the manner in which it is preparing for the 2015 presidential election.
It has shown high level of professionalism in its dealing.
This indicates that Zambia’s democracy is on the rise, albeit the political mayhem witnessed in the last few weeks has tended to take away some credit from the country’s improvement in terms of democracy.