ACTION ON DISABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT
ZAMBIA PROGRAMME

REPORT ON THE IFES SPONSORED ELECTION
MONITORING PROJECT FOR THE ZAMBIA
2001 TRIPARTITE ELECTIONS

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Working With Disabled People For Positive Change

WEST OF SOWETO MARKET, LUSAKA.

1. INTRODUCTION

Zambia Federation of the Disabled (ZAFOD) is a human rights umbrella organization of Disabled Peoples' Organizations in Zambia whose major objective is to promote the welfare of persons with disabilities and whose vision is to see to it that persons with disabilities attain equalization of opportunities that are generally available in society and are necessary for the fundamental elements of living, including family life, education, employment, housing, financial and personal security, participation in social and political groups, religious activity, sports, intimate and sexual relationships, access to public facilities, freedom of movement and the general style of daily living.

It was in trying to keep in line with our major objective and vision that ZAFOD, working in partnership with Action on Disability and Development (ADD) approached the International Foundation on Election Systems (IFES) for support to enable persons with disabilities participate in the 2001 Tripartite Elections in Zambia in a project called Disability Action on Voter Advocacy (DAVA).

2. PROJECT SCOPE AND OBJECTIVES:

The project objectives as supported by IFES with financial support from the Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA) were:

a) To carry out a voter education exercise among persons with disabilities and the general public on the importance of persons with disabilities' participation in the electoral process

b) To observe the electoral process, especially the voting stage.

The chief participating organizations in this project included all the six (6) ZAFOD member organizations namely: Zambia National Association of the Physically Handicapped (ZNAPH), Zambia National Association of the Partially Sighted (ZNAPS), Zambia National Association of the Hearing Impaired (ZNAHI), Zambia National Association of the Deaf (ZNAD), Zambia National Association of Disabled Women (ZNADWO) and Zambia Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities (ZACALD).

To ensure that even the blind persons whose organizations are not affiliated to ZAFOD participated in this programme, the Zambia National Federation of the Blind (ZANFOB) was also incorporated as a partner in this project with each organization sending one representative to sit on the DAVA Election Coordinating Committee.

3. METHODOLOGY OF IMPLEMENTATION

The methodology used to ensure that the project was a success involved a series of activities as outlined below: The activities of this project took place in five (5) Provinces of Zambia namely: Southern, Eastern, Central, Lusaka and Copperbelt.

a) Voter Education:

• ZAFOD ran a specific voter education process targeting the general public and persons with disabilities in particular using drama, radio and TV advertisements, radio announcements, posters, publications and meetings.

• The Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) was consulted on a number of occasions to ensure that accurate information was secured as well as to raise its concerns regarding the electoral process to accommodate the needs of voters with disabilities, to have access to the voting facility for wheelchair users, and a tactile ballot aid to be used by the visually impaired to increase the confidentiality of their voting rights.

• ZAFOD also brought up issues about disability development with various political parties through formal and informal meetings, correspondence as well as radio and TV advertisements.

• Also, through the supplementary financial support of the European Union, ZAFOD managed to carry out a survey on the accessibility of polling stations to persons with disabilities in five provinces as highlighted above.

b) Election Observation:

• ZAFOD organized an election observation team of forty-three (43) persons with various disabilities in the five designated provinces. These were firstly trained with the help of NGO Coalition 2001 who provided human resource and then deployed in 43 polling stations across the five provinces to serve as election monitors.

• The team so constituted worked side by side with other Zambian election monitors during voting in various polling stations. A specific form for our monitors with disabilities was designed to help them in systematically capturing information.

• To equip our monitors with a reference that they once participated in the training and monitoring of elections, each monitor was awarded a Certificate. Through this gesture, it is our hope that we have created a mechanism by which the monitoring teams of persons with disabilities will be recognized and integrated into the mainstream monitoring teams for future elections.

4. PROJECT FINDINGS

Based on our pre-election VOTER EDUCATION activities and information from the OBSERVATION FORMS on Election Day from our monitors, the following are our findings:

a) The Media
Regarding the media, ZAFOD observed that the national television station broadcasted quite a wide variety of news pertaining to elections. This, we believe was aimed at keeping the members of the public or the electorate informed and educated on electoral issues in order that they could make intelligent and informed decisions when voting on December, 27th 2001. However, deaf persons were deprived of this opportunity, as the national station did not provide sign language interprets to cater for persons who are deaf or hearing impaired thus depriving them of an opportunity to listen to whatever was being said so that come election day, they could vote for the right candidates having listened to their various manifestos.

The service being offered by the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC) is a public one and as such everyone including people who are deaf have access to such service being availed to the public at large.

By not providing sign language interprets ZNBC was in direct contravention of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Article 21 (b), which states "Everyone has the right of equal access to public services in his country"

In this regard, ZNBC is being earnestly urged to immediately start providing sign language interprets for the main News and all future programmes on elections.

However, ZAFOD wishes to commend the European Union for sponsoring live Television and Radio discussion programmes in connection with the 2001 tripartite elections as this gave the electorate a chance to be able to assess the respective Candidates that appeared on TV or participated on radio programmes and as they explained their party policies and plans to the electorate.

b) Nominations
The 2001 tripartite elections recorded the highest number of candidates for the Presidency but we observed with concern and trepidation, the inaccessible environment at the High Court, during the lodging in of presidential nominations and wondered how a person on a wheelchair for instance could lodge in his/her nomination if one day he/she were to run for presidency.

c) Polling Day
ZAFOD was impressed with the high voter turn out generally experienced on polling day. However, as persons with disabilities, we also observed and faced some grave shortcomings during this time.

i) Most public buildings used as polling stations were inaccessible to persons with disabilities due to high steps, narrow doors and corridors, as well as completely inaccessible and dirty toilets making mobility difficult or impossible especially for the blind persons and those with physical disabilities; For example, at Olympia Basic School, a physically disabled person was lifted into the classroom.

ii) Some polling stations were far away from the general community and with a bad road network;

iii) Some persons with disabilities (especially the deaf) were not aware of the voting procedures, as communication was a problem between them and the electoral officers. For example, at Gondar Primary School polling station in Chipata, a deaf person was shouted at for wanting to walk in the polling station with a Sign Language Interpreter, as he could not hear his name. At the same polling station, a blind person was not allowed to walk in with a guide and then received very little assistance from the polling agents.

iv) The voting process was very slow and tiresome in most polling stations and this forced some people that were waiting on the long queues to abandon the voting exercise altogether. However, we are happy to note that measures were put in place to ensure that priority was given to voters with disabilities and elderly persons so as to protect them from having to stay on queues for longer hours.

v) We sadly noted that voting by proxy was not allowed, as there is no such provision in the Electoral Act. This meant that persons with severe disabilities (including registered able bodied voters who might have been involved in a serious accident closer to elections) were disenfranchised. This further reduced the number of voters.

vi) ZAFOD also noted with dismay the violence that erupted during and after the release of election results and any events that might have lead to that violence. ZAFOD deplores any form of violence, as violence causes disabilities and retardation in national development. We disabled persons cherish peace.

5. RECOMMENDATIONS.

In view of our findings and for the sake of persons with disabilities, we recommend that:

a) Government should embark on a deliberate policy to ensure that persons with disabilities have access to the electoral process through provision of Sign Language Interprets for the deaf, Braille material for the blind and ramps to inaccessible public buildings for the benefit of physically disabled persons.

b) Disabled persons be included in all local and national decision making fora, such as parliament, central and local government, as well as all political parties and civil society structures;

c) Each stakeholder in disability issues and national development should allocate some percentage of their budgets to programmes of and for persons with disabilities;

d) The date of elections be fixed and be during a dry season to enhance transparency, easy planning and accessibility of the electoral process.

e) Transparent ballot boxes be introduced and that these be delivered to polling stations at least a day before elections are held.

6. CONCLUSION:

While the overall conduct of elections in the places where we monitored was deemed to be free and fair as people were able to cast their votes freely, all political parties were allowed to send their party agents and in some cases persons with disabilities were given preference in voting, ZAFOD wishes to declare that as far as persons with disabilities are concerned, the 2001 tripartite elections were not FREE and FAIR as most of the issues as raised in our findings were not addressed.

To choose the right leaders, persons with disabilities need access to the electoral process, which includes access to information and polling stations. Otherwise without access to these we would always remain passive spectators.

It also has to be noted here that, most polling stations are institutions of learning, churches and welfare halls which are supposed to be accessible to the general public on an everyday basis and if persons with disabilities cannot access the electoral system, then it also implies that they cannot go to school, to church, to the courts of law and welfare facilities.

Under the Persons with Disabilities Act No. 33 of 1996 and the Bill of Rights, this is one of the worst forms of discrimination, and ZAFOD will always stand firm against any system that discriminates, undermines, excludes and violates against the rights of persons with disabilities.

It is our strong wish and hope that our recommendations will seriously be taken into consideration. We wish to thank everybody who participated in this exercise and all those that supported us in ensuring that our participation in the electoral process was a success.