Zambia starts counting votes

Staff from the Electoral Commission of Zambia count ballot papers at a polling station in Lusaka yesterday.

Vote counting is underway in Zambia after a hard-fought general election that saw sporadic clashes and troop reinforcements dispatched to three provinces. The ballot is expected to be the tightest yet in the third successive stand-off between President Edgar Lungu, 64, and veteran opposition candidate Hakainde Hichilema, 59. Partial and regional tallies started to trickle in yesterday, with final consolidated results expected by tomorrow, although Lungu’s party hinted that it is heading for victory. Thursday’s vote presented a test of democracy in the usually peaceful southern African nation country of 17mn people. Rising living costs appear to have sapped support for Lungu, who is accused of growing increasingly iron-fisted since taking office in 2015. Hichilema is vying for the top job for the sixth time, this time with the backing of 10 opposition parties. Violence occurred in North-Western province, a Hichilema stronghold, where two people including a chairman of the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) party were killed, Lungu announced late on Thursday. He placed the blame on Hichilema’s United Party for National Development (UPND) party. Zambia’s electoral commission has launched an investigation into the chairman’s murder. The UPND distanced itself from the case, calling it a “distraction” tactic. The PF also alleges that some of its agents were beaten and chased from polling stations in Southern province. Lungu, who deployed the military following pre-election clashes, reinforced the troop presence in those two provinces and in Western province. He has already said that the election-day violence “effectively rendered the elections in...  three provinces not free and fair”. Despite this warning, PF chief Davies Mwila said that the party’s own calculation of votes cast in various polling stations “show that President Edgar Lungu is in the lead”. “We are confident that we shall carry the day,” he said. Nic Cheeseman, a British political scientist, tweeted yesterday that there are fears Lungu was “exaggerating the extent of violence and instability in opposition regions” in order to justify invalidating results there. Social media access has been restricted since Hichilema cast his vote in Lusaka, raising eyebrows among the electorate. Use of social media, such as WhatsApp, is part of everyday life in the southern Africa country and the curbs on access could fuel suspicion about the outcome of the vote, which appeared too close to call. The government declined to comment on the disruptions to Internet access. Mobile phone networks directed questions to the government. Facebook confirmed that it was among the sites impacted. However, both the president and his rival found ways to bypass the restrictions and social are finding ways of bypassing the social media ban. Hichilema tweeted early yesterday calling for Internet access to be unblocked. Most shops were shut in the capital yesterday where a burning tyre barricade was seen along a highway. Police and soldiers patrolled the quiet streets of the capital yesterday, which was declared a public holiday. A group of soldiers was seen forcing informal vendors to pack up their stalls and ordering passersby to sweep litter from the street, and chased away onlookers taking pictures with their smartphones. Parliamentary and local government elections took place at the same time as the presidential ballot. Long queues outside polling stations on Thursday meant that voting continued long after the official closing time of 6pm (1600 GMT) – in some cases, the last ballot was cast nine hours afterwards. More than 7mn people were registered to vote, and the electoral commission said turnout was high, without giving a figure. The outcome is expected to hinge on results in Lusaka, a bustling city of more than 3.3mn people, and in the central Copperbelt province – key to the economy in Africa’s second-largest copper producer. Hichilema, who is running against Lungu for the third time, only lost by around 100,000 votes in 2016. Poll watchers have warned of possible unrest when the results are announced. “The real test will be in the counting process” and whether Lungu will accept a possible eventual defeat,” said independent Zambian political economist Trevor Simumba. Although violence has flared at past elections, all of Zambia’s transitions of power have been peaceful since the adoption of multi-party democracy in 1990.