Lusaka, 22 January, 2022 / 4:30 pm (ACI Africa).
Church leaders in Zambia under the Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG) have called on the media in the Southern African nation to observe impartiality and fairness in the coverage of the ongoing political campaigns ahead of the Kabwata Constituency Parliamentary by-election scheduled for February 3.
Kabwata Constituency fell vacant in November last year after its Member of Parliament, Levy Mkandawire, died in a road accident.
In a Thursday, January 20 statement, the church leaders say, “CCMG urges the media to unreservedly and impartially play its key role of providing space for all the political parties and candidates to interact with electorates in order to allow entrenchment of democratic governance through the electoral process in our country.”
They say that the media “is not only a key stakeholder in the electoral process but a key carrier of political messages especially at this time when due to the COVID-19 pandemic, physical gatherings are discouraged and minimized.”
The leaders representing various church groupings in the Southern African nation have also called on officials of the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) to enforce the Electoral Code of Conduct without fear.