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Zambian president says eligible to run 2021 elections

Xinhua, January 5, 2017 Adjust font size:

Zambian President Edgar Lungu said on Thursday that he was eligible to stand for elections in 2021 and challenged those calling for a change of leadership.

Wrangles have emerged in the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) with some of the senior members calling for elections to choose new leaders.

Lungu, when addressing party members in Luanshya town, Copperbelt province, said he had just been reading the party's constitution which clearly indicates that he was eligible to stand for elections in 2021.

Lungu also called on party members to embrace new comers as the party needed numbers ahead of the general elections, in a response to concern that the party has given members from the opposition Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), which was ousted from power in 2011, senior positions at the expense of old members.

He said people who are aggrieved by his eligibility to contest the 2021 elections should go to the Constitutional Court to seek legal redress.

He further challenged senior party members causing divisions in the party to leave, saying he wanted the party to be united.

Lungu first became president in 2015 after winning an election called to replace late President Michael Sata. He then emerged winner of the elections held on August 11, 2016.

The Zambian constitution only allows for a two-term limit in office for the president. Endit