• Zambia needs quality law and this can only be done with well qualified elected leaders.
• The country must advocate for upward adjustment of qualifications for elective political positions.
• Zambia has enough secondary school and university graduates to provide leadership.

An Electoral Expert has opposed the European Union Election Observation Mission (EUEOM)’s recommendation to do away with the Grade 12 academic qualification for one to aspire for elective political position.
In a statement, McDonald Chipenzi said with the decentralization process at its peak, having Councilors, mayors, council chairpersons, Members of Parliament, Ministers and Presidents who can barely read and write or competently debate, dissect and analyse local, national and global issues will undermine the decentralization process in Zambia.
Mr. Chipenzi stated that the country must instead advocate for upward adjustment of qualifications for elective political positions from Grade 12 academic to a degree qualification for quality leadership and debate in parliament.
“In this millennial era, going back to those dark times when people went into these positions without defined qualifications, are long gone and now requires all to have some qualifications to their names. Zambia needs quality law and this can only be done with well qualified elected leaders. Even the in Europe, I doubt if they have ill-qualified MPs, academically, in their parliaments,” Mr. Chipenzi stated.
He noted that currently, Zambia has enough secondary school and university graduates to provide leadership nurseries with qualifications to favorably participate in politics and any field.
Mr. Chipenzi however observed that there is lack of motivation among citizens to participate in partisan politics due to perceptions that politics is a dirty game and not qualifications.
“We have enough G12 graduate now than ever before to fill all layers of elective and nominative political positions in Zambia. Zambia now has more than one secondary school in each constituency and is not short of G12s. For instance, in 2020 alone, 147, 055 pupils sat for school certificate examinations at G12 level. Out of the 147,055 candidates that sat for the examination, 94,010 (63.9%) obtained a full certificate, 49,032 (33.3%) obtained GCE certificate while only 4,013 (2.7%) actually failed.”
“From the above, just for 2020 G12 graduates who obtained full G12 certificates and GCE are enough to fill all the elective positions at ward level (1852 seats), Districts (116 seats), Constituencies (156 seats), vice president (1) and President (1) which is a total of 2,126 seats. Therefore, the scrapping off of the G12 academic qualification requirement recommendations by the EUOM is hereby OPPOSED,” he said.
In its final report on the August 12, 2021 General elections, European Union Election Observation Mission has recommended that Zambia must revise candidacy requirements to enhance the right and opportunity to stand by ensuring registration fees do not deter participation and are refundable, and removing educational requirements for the right to stand.