FODEP defends political parties over campaign funding

The Foundation for Democratic Process (FODEP) says it is unfair for anyone to criticize the Patriotic Front (PF) or indeed any political party for soliciting administration and campaign funds from any well-wisher of their own choice.

FODEP Executive Director MacDonald Chipenzi has told QFM News that the PF should not even be apologetic or feel guilty of anything for the alleged soliciting of campaign funds anywhere.

Mr. Chipenzi explains that under the current legal and political environment, any political party is free to look for campaign and administration funds from anywhere in the world and this is the price Zambia is paying for failing to put a law that should have regulated and governed the funding sources, fund ceiling and disclosure of funding sources by political parties.

Mr. Chipenzi says the non-existence of a legal provision is a potential threat to the country’s well-being as it puts the country at a vulnerable position.

He says this is because the country does not know what agreements or deals political parties enter into with the funders.

He adds that the country is actually at the mercy of political parties’ benevolence not to source such funds from inimical elements to a credible democratic process.

Mr. Chipenzi says it is for the reason that his organization has been calling for the funding of political parties in Zambia to improve their accountability and transparency levels and also appreciates the importance of political parties as institutions of governance and souls and lifeblood of Zambia’s multiparty democracy.

He says with regards the PF presidential hopeful Edgar Lungu and Minister of Foreign Affairs Minister Harry Kalaba’s recent private visit to Zimbabwe and their “country brief” to President Robert Mugabe, one wonders whether the meeting was sanctioned by the acting President Dr. Guy Scott to whom they report to by virtue of being cabinet ministers.

He strongly feels that the sidelining of the Acting President by the two ministers is undermining the governance system of the country and a testimony that divisions both in PF as a political party and Government are still rife.