Zambian Electoral Commission officers check with torchlights the voters register book and count the votes at a polling station in Lusaka South during Zambian general elections on August 11, 2016 in Lusaka.
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There’s a lot at stake and the country needs law and order for the economy to stabilise.
If no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote, a second round of voting between the top two candidates must be held within 37 days. His running mate is Geoffrey Mwamba, an ex-defense minister from the north of the country who has helped rally support from the Bemba, the country’s largest ethnic group.
“It’s a total mess”, Hichilema told reporters Friday at the national election results center in Lusaka, the capital. It has held multi-party elections since 1991, and incumbent losers step down gracefully.
At a press briefing on Friday, Isaac said she understood the nation was anxious to hear the results but appealed for calm.
He beat his main contender, 54-year-old businessman Hakainde Hichilema of the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) by a narrow majority of 27, 757 votes (1.66%). “We are aware of the volume of work that has gone into counting ballots for five elections”, Isaac said, adding that the first batch of results would be announced at 1200 GMT.
“We can only give official results after we get results from all polling stations in a constituency and verify them”. We also pray that all voters, political party leaders and their cadres may have at heart, the needed passion and commitment to build for peace and avoid all forms of violence. Three people have been killed in the fighting and many more were injured.
Zambians voted in a fiercely contested poll between Hichilema and President Edgar Lungu, who’s been in power for about 18 months.
As of Saturday’s count, turnout was at 56.32 percent, far above the 32 percent recorded early past year when Lungu narrowly won an election to fill the vacancy left by the death of then president Michael Sata.
The opposition has accused the PF of not being able to contain a crisis created by falling prices of copper – the country’s main revenue earner – and drought-induced electricity shortages, which triggered a steep fall of the kwacha currency and spiralling inflation.
Zambians queued round the block in Lusaka on Thursday as voting began for a new president and legislators in what is expected to be a tough battle, as slow growth and weak commodity prices weigh on Africa’s second-biggest copper producer.
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A prolonged delay could raise opposition doubts about the credibility of the election, said Bjorn Dahlin Van Wees, Africa analyst at the Economist Intelligence Unit.
