DAP-K’s Malava parliamentary candidate, Seth Panyako, found himself behind bars on Thursday, only hours after surviving an overnight attack and reporting the destruction of his campaign vehicles.
According to DAP-K, Panyako was arrested at the very police station where he had gone to file a complaint over the violence. The party condemned the turn of events, accusing law enforcers of enabling chaos instead of stopping it.
“Our candidate, Seth Panyako, has been arrested and is now being held at Malava Police Station,” the party said in a statement. “This is happening after goons operating right under the watch of police terrorised him the entire night, injured our agents, and vandalised property. Intimidation will not be tolerated.”
Panyako’s arrest comes hot on the heels of his claims that unknown individuals had been stalking him ahead of the by-election. After voting at St Joseph Lunyu Primary School earlier in the day, he told reporters that he believed he was being targeted because internal polls allegedly placed him as the frontrunner in the race.
“The government candidate was at 24 per cent yesterday. So the only way for them to win is to eliminate me,” he claimed.
He further alleged that the attack, the surveillance, and now his arrest were all part of a broader scheme engineered by individuals he described as linked to government interests, aimed at shutting him out of the by-election altogether.
