Zambia Presidential Election News: "We at the PF have the people"

We've been praying for Zambia and all our friends there, as they went to the polls Tuesday, 20 Sept 2011. Some rioting has broken out over delays in voting places and suspected fraud, and also because of the delay in releasing confirmed results. Challenger Michael Sata, of the Patriotic Front, who is very popular in the Copperbelt, where we lived in Kitwe, seems to be ahead.

"The President for all Zambians"

Rupiah Banda's campaign has included HUGE billboards, a fleet of 4x4 trucks with his posters on them, handing out free chitenge fabric with his face and party brand it, giving away bags of mealie meal (allegedly from food relief supplies), and fixing/building infrastructure--roads, hospitals, schools--which he hasn't managed to do in all his days as President, until just before the election.

"Don't Kubeba" (don't tell)

Michael Sata of the Patriotic Front has pretty broad grass-roots support, though his campaign materials are less high-tech. His slogan basically means--go ahead and take Rupiah's mealie meal, but don't tell them you're still going to vote for Sata.

This past year in Zambia, we heard many people say that the PF has indeed won the vote the last 3 presidential elections, but official results have not "reflected" that, nor has the ruling party changed.

Check out some interesting quotes and read further articles on the rioting and results:

Zambia election results trickle in slowly from International Business Times

Zambia presidential election results are in at about half of the country's constituencies. The Patriotic Front's Michael Sata has an early lead over incumbent Rupiah Banda, whose party has been in power for 20 years, but it is much too early to call the election.

With 85 of 150 voting districts tallied, Sata leads the race with 43 percent of the vote, compared to President Banda's 36 percent. However, Banda still leads in the most recent opinion polls.

The two politicians fought a fierce battle in the 2008 presidential elections, with Banda edging out his nationalist opponent by a mere two percentage points. Sata alleged that the vote has been tampered with, a claim that has again arisen in this year's vote.

Two Killed in Riots over Zambian Election from a paper in Sydney, Australia

...Supporters of Sata's Patriotic Front (PF) in the Copperbelt towns of Kitwe and Ndola accused authorities of withholding results that favoured their candidate.

Their frustrations turned to violence on Thursday as police said two people were killed in riots that were broken up with tear gas and water cannons.

Ballot papers and vehicles set ablaze from Zambian newspaper, the Post (generally the PF-slanted reporting)

...A Law Association of Zambia monitor Dumisani Tembo, who also had his vehicle stoned, said: "We arrived around six in the morning but while other places seemed ready for the poll, Lilanda East looked very far. There was literally nothing, no polling booths, no ballot boxes, there were only lids for ballot boxes. No voters' register, no presiding officer and no posters to indicate what stream this is. That's what started to cause the anxiety."

...The eyewitnesses said the voters burnt the electoral materials in protest against the delay in opening the polling stations. They said the polling station did not open up to about 13:00 hours, thereby angering the electorate that had waited outside the centre long before 06:00 hours, the stipulated time of starting the voting process.

...Speaking at David Kaunda National Technical High School in Lusaka Central constituency where he is also a PF parliamentary candidate, Dr Scott said it was surprising that the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) and the Lusaka City Council had badly organised the electoral process.

"There are lots of late deliveries of materials which have contributed to these disturbances. What we are wondering is whether this is a deliberate attempt to bring down the PF vote in Lusaka because it's the major contributor to the national score or whether it's just incompetence," Dr Scott said.

China's stake in Zambia's election from BBC news the day before the election

...Neo Simuntanyi, director of the left-leaning Lusaka-based think tank Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), told the BBC that Zambian party financing was totally opaque and it was hard to really know where money was coming from.

"Although there's no way to prove it, there are a lot of suspicions that the MMD is maybe benefiting from Chinese support just because of the sheer scale of their campaign," he said.

"The MMD has never had that kind of money before and you can see that in how well-oiled their campaign machine has been and how big their presence is everywhere around the country."

...Mr Simuntanyi suggested that it was in the interest of Chinese companies to keep the MMD in power, in order to maintain the favourable - or as some would say preferential - investment climate they have enjoyed in Zambia in recent years.

China's main area of interest is mining, having bought up on the cheap a number of copper, cobalt and nickel mines, which had been mothballed by Western investors when commodity prices fell.

...Although there have been repeated allegations - and in some cases hard evidence - of poor labour conditions and low salaries in Chinese-run mines and factories, the Zambian government remains happy with its new friend because the investment has driven economic growth to almost unprecedented levels.

...Given Lubinda, a PF parliamentary candidate, said the size of the ruling party's campaign had been surprising.

"All of sudden they seem to have so much money - whether or not it's coming from the Chinese, we don't know, but for all that and the advantages they have had through the state-owned television and newspapers, we at the PF have the people," he said.