Violence was reported in the North-Western province, a
Hichilema stronghold, where two people including a ruling Patriotic Front (PF)
party chairman were killed, the president announced late on Thursday, blaming
his rival’s United Party for National Development (UPND) party.
Zambia’s electoral commission has launched an investigation
into the chairman’s murder, which the UPND distanced itself from, calling it a
“distraction” tactic. The PF also alleges some of its agents were beaten and
chased from polling stations in the Southern province. Lungu, who had deployed
the military to police the vote following pre-election clashes, reinforced
troops in three provinces.
There are fears the president could be “exaggerating the
extent of violence and instability in opposition regions to justify”
invalidating their results, Nic Cheeseman, British political scientist and
author of “How to Rig an Election”, tweeted on Thursday.
Social media access has meanwhile been throttled since
Hichilema cast his vote in the capital Lusaka, raising eyebrows among the
electorate. Bleary-eyed polling agents were still counting ballot papers as the
sun rose over Vera Chiluba primary school in central Lusaka on Friday, sifting
through the final batches in a classroom.
Voting continued hours after polls closed at 6 pm on
Thursday, with many of the more than seven million registered voters queueing
through large chunks of the day to cast their ballot. — AFP
Final official results of the presidential, parliamentary
and local government elections are expected by Sunday, although partial and
unofficial tallies were already circulating. Poll watchers have warned of
possible unrest when the results are out. The outcome is expected to swing on
results in Lusaka, a bustling city of more than 3.3 million, and in the central
Copperbelt province — the 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 and an even narrower margin in a by-election
the previous year. — AFP
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