The United Party for National Development(UPND), Zambia’s largest opposition party, is not giving in to the idea of electronically transmission of election result in the fourth coming presidential by-elections; that was proposed by the country’s Electoral Commission.
The opposition party had initially accepted the transmission of results through mobile phones, from constituency centres to the commission’s headquarters and the national results centre at Mulungushi Conference Centre in the capital Lusaka using mobile phones.
The party claims that it has received news that intelligence officers will hack into the Electoral Commission of Zambia’s system and manipulate the results against the opposition before sending them to Mulungushi International Conference Centre for final announcement.
The commission plans to use mobile phones to transmit election results but the UPND said it will now not accept the proposal to transmit results using mobile phones.
The Electoral Commission has however, said it will invite the party to share with it the intelligence report in its possession before deciding the way forward.
The commission has bought mobile phones for all election officials for use in transmitting election results in a bid to bring efficiency in the election management system.
Zambia goes to the polls on January 20 following the death of President Michael Sata last year.
