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Friday, July 22, 2016
Zambia’s presidential elections are coming up next month pitting incumbent Edgar Lungu against Hakainde Hichilema, the leader of the United Party for National Development (UPND) party. As the day of the election grows closer, political tensions heighten, with the campaign period marked by incidents of violence. This violence has led to at least one protester killed in clashes with the police.
The violence has been particularly bad in the capital Lusaka, and the city of Namwala, resulting in the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) suspending campaigning in the two cities between July 10 and 18. During this period, political parties were banned from holding public rallies, meetings, processions or door to door campaigns.
Lungu is facing stiff competition from the leader of the UPND, Hakainde Hichilema, with the race considered too close to call at this time. The two men also faced off in the 2015 election which Lungu barely won, receiving 48.33% of the vote to Hichilema’s 46.67%.
There are already accusations of vote rigging with Hichilema saying that the elections are not going to be free and fair and that Lungu is using the state apparatus to rig the vote and is abusing the Public Order Act (POA) to harass opposition parties. The government controlled media has also come under heavy criticism for biased reporting in favor of the ruling PF party and denying opposition parties fair coverage.
Transparency International Zambia has voiced concerns over the multitude of irregularities on the voting role including duplicate voters, which it described as “criminal”. Added to this, a recent audit of the voters’ role also revealed irregularities involving cases in which registered voters shared the same ID number.
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