Q FM Africa's Modern Radio
The Council of Churches in Zambia says the church is ready to play the role of mediator when called upon by any political party to resolve differences.
The church mother body says bloodshed should be avoided, and that any blood spilled for expediency shall be on all politicians’ hands.
The CCZ says the in-fighting in the Patriotic Front (PF) and the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) and the United National Independence Party (UNIP) has the potential to cause instability in the country if left unchecked.
In a media statement issued today, CCZ church leaders note that the confusion, instead of being amicably resolved via observation of respective party constitutions has intensified and is escalating to dangerous proportions.
The church leaders note that this is affecting all Zambians and would be investors.
They further state that this is creating a very unhealthy transition process towards electing a new President for the country.
The church leaders add that the behaviour of some political leaders does not give Zambians confidence that they qualify to be national leaders.
They state that the PF as a party in power has a great responsibility to ensure peace and security in the nation by means of embracing the principle of unity of purpose by putting individual differences aside and concentrate on their mandate to lead the country through this transition to the election day.
They further state that the ruling party must realise that the continued in-fighting is a cost to the country’s development as the entire PF leadership which comprises of senior government officials are spending most of their time fuelling conflict in order to grab leadership at all costs.
The CCZ Church leaders note that since the death of President Michael Sata, the ministers have abandoned and neglected their national duties to join in the confusion, describing the situation as retrogressive and uncalled for.
Meanwhile the three church mother bodies and other faith based organisations namely the Council of Churches in Zambia (CCZ), the Evangelical Fellowship in Zambia (EFZ), the Zambia Episcopal Conference (ZEC), Caritas Zambia and the Jesuit Centre for Theological Reflection (JCTR) have formed a coalition called the Christian Churches Monitoring Group(CCMG),to ensure transparency, accountability and credibility of the election process.
The coalition’s aim is to monitor the forth-coming presidential elections of 20th January, 2015 and the entire electoral process leading to the elections, focusing mainly on the management of election results.
To this effect, CCMG will come up with a Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) exercise to be used as a tool for monitoring the integrity of the election results during and after the counting process of votes, with the participation of well-trained election monitors.