By Fred M’membe
It doesn’t make sense for the Electoral Commission of Zambia to extend the voter registration period by just four days. We seem to be terrible judges of how long things take. Psychologists call this the planning fallacy — a pervasive tendency to underestimate how long it will take to do just about anything — and it can be attributed to several different biases.
First, we routinely fail to consider our own past experiences while planning. After a month of voter registration experience, we still can’t seem to figure out how long it will take us to reasonably complete this exercise.
Second, we seem to consistently ignore the very real possibility that things won’t go as planned — our plans tend to be “best-case scenarios”. And as a consequence, we budget only enough time to complete the project if everything goes smoothly. Which it never really does.
Lastly, we don’t think about all the steps or subcomponents that make up the voter registration process, and consider how long each part of the process will take. When you think about painting a room, you may picture yourself using a roller to quickly slap the paint on the walls, and think that it won’t take much time at all — neglecting to consider how you’ll first have to move or cover the furniture, tape all the fixtures and window frames, do all the edging by hand, and so on.
Extending the voter registration period for four days without addressing the poor time planning that landed us in hot water in the first place, we will likely end up in hot water again down the road.
Are there no legal minds to sue ECZ instead of yapping all the time?
Where are the CSO and other opposition parties. Last time I checked the constitution it says “voters registration must be a continuous process”.?
You mean Essau Chulu can just bulldoze us like that to favour Edgar Lungu.
PF must go!
Well done M’membe.
Communication is also a limiting factor in Zambia. Some parts of Zambia will learn about this extension after the four days has elapsed. The extension should have been by two months.
This can’t be an exercise in perpetuity. Some people just look for the last day to do things. We have already registered enough voters to conduct a successful election. A voter registration extension is a bonus. Zambian opposition parties are just negative on anything – to them that is called working.
My friend was involved in voter registration. His observation is that all serious voters registered within the first 30 days. In fact towards the end they were registering less than 5 people pet day.
Those that did not register at first did so by choice. They are simply not interested.
Even in these 4 days there aren’t many people there.
ECZ has a budget to follow and time frame in which to compile and clean the data. Thereafter provide time for verification and corrections then publish the final register. They now need to move to the next step otherwise we will reach August next year without a verified register.
The number so far captured should be enough to legitise our elections.
The Fred Mmembe we used to know died with the Post Newspaper. This one talking is a Zombie with no brain. If he included figures of how many have registered so far who would have made sense. ECZ knows the kind of people Zambians are. They extend for another 30 days people will relax and still show up on the last day.
People exposing their full ignorance here, according to the Zambian law, voter registration is supposed to be serious, so one can’t say serious voters voted in the first 30 days. But again this is a very broke government due poor leadership that led to un calculated and reckless borrowing, so the law has just been breached by the stoppage of voter registration.
Even if they extend it by 20 years, cheecolour you are still not going to win. Stop wasting a good time.
LT why does this chap think he is clever by insulting at will.
Nothing will ever make sense for you baby M’membe… We know your frustrations
M’membe has a problem… He still doesn’t know what hit him….and he will never know
The daily insults you see from Kaizar on this blog is the daily thinking of the PF leadership which on the ground translates into the daily violence you see from PF caders , he is busy here insulting Fred Mmembe who has not wronged this fullish lab technician in any way.
Why does LT tolerate daily insults from Kaizar on their blog
Jabulani nothing in my comment is an insult in my mother tongue. Which word are you saying is an insult ?
Can Police round up all chaps at ECZ, because the LAW says voter registration should be continuous and ECZ are doing the opposite.