Zambians urged to remain peaceful

Zambians have been called upon to remain peaceful and calm as they await the outcome of yesterday’s presidential election.

The Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG) is also appealing to political parties that have contested the election to publicly call for calm and restraint on the part of their supporters during the on going results collation process.

The CCMG which comprises four faith-based organizations which are the CCZ, the EFZ, JCTR and ZEC, is urging that this restraint and calmness should be sustained until the announcement of the results.

Speaking on behalf of the four faith-based organizations EFZ Executive Director Pukuta Mwanza has told a media briefing in Lusaka this morning that the CCMG will continue to monitor the continued collation process and that it will issue additional statements when needs arises.

Reverend Mwanza says to this effect the CCMG has planned to issue a statement to provide an independent verification of the presidential election results immediately after the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) announces the official election results.

He says the statement will be based on the Parallel Voter Tabulation (PVT) methodology the CCMG is currently using.

The EFZ Executive Director states the PVT statement will thus be anchored on the reports of the official results from the CCMG’s national representation sample of 703 polling station stream located in 501 polling stations.

He says the intention of the CCMG is to ensure that every Zambia verify on their own that the official results announced by the ECZ truly reflect the votes cast at the polling stations.