By Sean Tembo

1. As Patriots for Economic Progress (PeP), we have noted with happiness the high appetite among Zambians to actively participate in the selection of national leaders next year, as evidenced by the continued long queues at voter registration centers. It has now become apparent that the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) is unlikely to register all Zambians that wish to register as voters, by the expiry of the voter registration period in 7 days time.

2. As Patriots for Economic Progress, we wish to call upon the Electoral Commission of Zambia to consider extending the voter registration period by an additional 30 days so as to afford every eligible citizen the opportunity to register as a voter. It must be noted that no Zambian deserves to be disenfranchised on account of administrative or legal encumbrances. Therefore, even if it means amending the Republican Constitution to adjourn the general elections by one month, it shall be done. There shall be no excuse for preventing eligible Zambian citizens who wish to register and vote from doing so.

3. As Patriots for Economic Progress, we wish to take this opportunity to appeal to fellow opposition leaders especially from the UPND and NDC who are in the habit of seeking to micro-manage ECZ to desist from doing so. Like any other institution, the Electoral Commission of Zambia must be given space and fresh air to operate. ECZ should not waste its time fending off insults and innuendo from unscrupulous political leaders whose sole objective is to create a false narrative to help explain their potential electoral loss next year. The duty of any political stakeholder with regard to the electoral process is to provide feedback and advice to the Commission in a sober and mature manner, and not to seek to discredit and belittle the Commission at every available opportunity.

4. As Patriots for Economic Progress, we wish to further advise the PF Government to ensure that ECZ is allocated its full budget to allow it to properly discharge its mandate with regard to the voter registration exercise. It is hypocritical for the PF and its Government to condemn ECZ for the slow voter registration process when they know that they have only released about 60 percent of the approved budgeted funds. ECZ is not in the magic business for it to be able to register voters without financial resources. It requires money to do its job.

Additionally, the PF should be informed that it is in their political interests that ECZ is fully funded and Zambians do not have to line up the whole night to get a voters card. That is because if the voter registration process is made difficult, as it has been so far, the only people who would be willing to spend the whole night on a queue to register as a voter are those who want to kick out the current Government and not those who want to keep it.

Those who want to keep the current Government would not have sufficient zeal to struggle with a cumbersome voter registration process.

As African governments crack down on protestors and opposition leaders in countries such as Nigeria and Uganda, it is emerging that state security agencies in seven regional countries are among 25 around the world using an Israeli surveillance platform to snoop on private communications of citizens.

A new report names Nigeria, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Equatorial Guinea, Morocco, and Zambia as the African countries that have been employing Circles’ surveillance platforms to exploit flaws in telecoms systems and to access telephone calls, SMS messages and location services.

The report by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab titled Running in Circles: Uncovering the Clients of Cyberespionage Firm Circles offers new perspectives detailing how the telecom surveillance company, Circles has deployed its platforms across Africa, helping state security departments to snoop on communications of opposition politicians, journalists, and protestors.

It’s worth noting Circles is said to be affiliated with Tel Aviv-based NSO Group, which became globally known last year for the Pegasus spyware scandal after it was reported to have been used to exploit a vulnerability in the popular WhatsApp app to spy opposition organizers in several countries.

One such example is Botswana, where Citizen Lab has detailed how the Directorate for Intelligence and Security’s domain was used to identify two snooping systems linked to Circles platforms. This was undertaken through cryptographic TLS certificates signed under “CN=sid.org.bw” which is a domain name linked to the country’s state security and defense department. The targets for this surveillance seemed to have been media houses, journalists, and their sources in cases involving corruption by politicians.

The outbreak of EndSARS protests in Nigeria, where young citizens demonstrated peacefully against the heavy-handed and violent nature of the now-disbanded SARS police unit, triggered a deadly state security crackdown on protestors features followed by various attempts by the government to infiltrate and undermine protest organizers. This is not new, Front Line Defenders had already concluded in a 2018 report that that the Nigerian government “has conducted mass surveillance of citizens’ telecommunications.”

But it’s not just the countries facing protests that are resorting to surveillance of private communications of citizens. In Zambia, for example, there is a entire cyber-surveillance unit in the office of the country’s telecommunications regulator. As in Uganda more recently, Zambia and several other African countries have relied on a mix of Chinese-bought facial recognition and digital surveillance tools from companies including Huawei and Cloudwalk.

As internet penetration and smartphone usage increases with young Africans, social media has become more influential for organizing civil society and opposition movements across Africa. This has led to several governments shutting down the internet or blocking social media apps especially around elections and protests. But given the economic cost of shutdowns and widespread criticism, covert surveillance of digital footprints may now be seen as a more effective option.

Hiding behind code names or completely operating behind anonymous domains is an emerging trend for African state departments undertaking covert surveillance of private citizens as there was an unidentified client using Circles’ platform in Zimbabwe, in addition to another client going by the code name “Zagato Zeus”. Another client, Zimbabwe Telcel has also been identified as having relied on Circles’ platform for surveillance of private telecommunications in the southern African country.

Equatorial Guinea, which has previously shut down the internet, also had an anonymous client using surveillance systems while Telco Kali Rainbow was identified as being behind usage of a surveillance system geo-located to Mauritius but traced back to IP addresses in Kenya.

As surveillance of private citizens’ communications increases across Africa, there are fresh worries that telecom companies are not yet adequately geared to deal with this trend.

“Abuse of the global telephone system for tracking and monitoring is believed to be widespread, however it is difficult to investigate,” notes Citizen Lab in its report. “Meanwhile, cellular carriers have many technical difficulties identifying and blocking abuses of their infrastructure.”

Source: Quartz Africa