Zambia police fire tear gas as tension builds

Lusaka, Wednesday 

Zambian police fired tear gas today to disperse around 100 supporters of the leading opposition candidate in the presidential election as they waited for results of the closely-fought race.

A number of Hakainde Hichilema’s United Party for National Development supporters were arrested and bundled into a police van, an AFP reporter saw.

The group had kept a vigil outside a conference centre in Lusaka where the first batch of official results from Tuesday’s vote were expected to be released.

But the electoral commission suspended the announcement of the results after extending the vote for a day because heavy rains had prevented polling officials reaching some remote areas.

Police initially asked the supporters to disperse but one of them shouted back at the officers, who then drove them off with batons and teargas.

It is a traditional practice for supporters of a party that thinks it is winning an election in Zambia to gather outside the results venue waiting for the announcement

In several previous cases party supporters have also been removed forcibly with the use of tear gas.

Mr Hichilema is seen as the main challenger to ruling Patriotic Front party candidate Edgar Lungu, in the contest to win the presidency after the death in office of Michael Sata last October. Earlier today, Mr Hichilema complained at the slow transmission of election results.

Official results show Mr Lungu leading from among the constituencies announced early today.

SLOW TRANSMISSION OF RESULTS

“We have concerns, these concerns include the slow transmission of results,” Mr Hichilema told a horde of supporters outside the Mulungushi International Conference Centre, which is being used as a results centre, in the capital Lusaka.

“But the truth of the matter is, this election is ours.”

The election has been hampered by heavy rains in most parts of the country and by low voter turn out.

Electoral Commission of Zambia chairperson Ireen Mambilima said on state television that announcement of the results has been suspended as some areas were still voting.

“We want to announce verified results,” she said. Justice Mambilima called on two rival parties the UPND and PF to “cage” their supporters and not flare their tempers in their desperate attempt to get the results faster than perceived.

The Southern African nation of 14million has 150 Constituencies. The winner is likely to be known by Friday.

A planned airlift of ballot papers and polling officers to remote villages was disrupted by “extreme thunderstorms” which grounded flights, election authorities said.

Voters in at least two dozen out of around 6,000 polling stations are now expected to cast ballots today in a close-fought presidential election to replace Sata, who died in office last year.

In one area, polling material will first have to be transported by boat, then the polling officers will have to walk for three hours before jumping on ox-drawn carts to polling stations, according to the electoral commission.

“We have no control over the weather,” said elections director Priscilla Isaacs.

GENERALLY PEACEFUL VOTE

The head of a Southern African observer team, South African Foreign Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane commended the electoral body for holding a “generally peaceful” vote under “challenging” conditions.

Results started to trickle in Wednesday from a handful urban centres, but a final national tally was not expected until Friday. The first counts in four of the 150 constituencies, showed Lungu leading in three and Hichilema in one.

The vote was triggered after Sata died in October last year from an undisclosed illness. At stake is the remaining year and a half of his five-year term in the copper-rich southern African nation.

In the absence of reliable opinion polls, analysts hedged their bets.
“It’s a two-horse race,” said Oliver Saasa, CEO of Premier Consult, a business and economic consultancy firm. “It’s quite clear this is a very closely run race.”

Mr Hichilema’s camp is seen to have received a boost from the infighting within another major opposition party, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), whose candidate Nevers Mumba has little chance.

Mr Lungu’s PF, meanwhile, went into the vote badly fractured by a bitter power struggle after Sata’s death in October. With ideological differences between Zambia’s political parties difficult to pin down, voting patterns are often determined by personalities and ethnicity rather than issues.

Despite growth-oriented policies and a stable economy over the past few years, at least 60 percent of Zambia’s population of 15 million lives below the poverty line, according to World Bank figures.

About 5.2 million people were eligible to vote, but turnout is expected to be low, partly because of the weather. (AFP)