Zambia presidential by-election

politicus
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	Re: Zambia presidential by-election - January 20, 2015 « Reply #150 on: January 21, 2015, 03:36:14 AM »
	« edited: January 21, 2015, 03:47:24 AM by Charlotte Hebdo »

It looks like PF is solidly ahead in the Copperbelt after all. In that case they almost certainly win:

http://www.lusakatimes.com/2015/01/21/hh-headed-defeat-copperbelt-province/

According to Zambian Economist (which is among the more unbiased media) the picture is:

PF has won decisively in Muchinga, Luapula, Northern, Copperbelt, Lusaka and Eastern provinces.

UPND has won decisively in Southern Province, Western and North Western.

Central province is split almos evenly.

Due to the heavy rain turnout has been very low and ranged between 30% and 40%. Turnout has been higher in urban areas than rural areas (which is bad for UPND with their appeal to farmers). Copperbelt it has been around 38%, whereas the UPND stronghold in Southern was around 30%.

The areas yet to vote are in Eastern Province and Western Province and likely irrelevant if this is the picture.

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politicus
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	Re: Zambia presidential by-election - January 20, 2015 « Reply #151 on: January 21, 2015, 04:15:44 AM »
	« Edited: January 21, 2015, 04:24:11 AM by Charlotte Hebdo »

According to opposition site Zambia Watchdog a parallel vote tabulation done by Transparency International Zambia shows:

Hakainde Hichilema 893 411
Edger Lungu 712 343
Nevers Mumba 37 535

Organizations doing alternative vote counts are not allowed to publish them before the official results are published, so it is based on a leak, but if it is in fact the TIZ count there will be trouble.

ECZ are "currently updating their results", so nothing there at the moment, but here is the link:

http://www.elections.org.zm/results/2015_presidential_election

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politicus
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	Re: Zambia presidential by-election - January 20, 2015 « Reply #152 on: January 21, 2015, 07:00:30 AM »
	« Edited: January 21, 2015, 07:04:13 AM by Charlotte Hebdo »

Result for 18 constituencies with 430 000 registered voters

Turnout 33,3%

Lungu 92 000
Hichilema 44 900
Mumba 2 000
Nawakwi 1 100

They include 6 out of the 22 Copperbelt constituencies with 222 700 registered voters, so more than half of this result is from the Copperbelt.

Turnout was 33,7% in these.

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politicus
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Re: Zambia presidential by-election - January 20, 2015

« Reply #153 on: January 21, 2015, 07:30:15 AM »

There are around 5 mio. registered voters in Zambia, so less than 10% counted.

Turnout will be much lower than the 54% in 2011 due to heavy rain and uinspiring candidates.

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politicus
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	Re: Zambia presidential by-election - January 20, 2015 « Reply #154 on: January 21, 2015, 07:47:02 AM »
	« Edited: January 21, 2015, 08:31:14 AM by Charlotte Hebdo »

ECZ has suspended the announcement of results to avoid influencing voters in the polling stations where voting is still going on. There are only 21 337 registered voters in these districts.

Guy Scott has on request from ECZ ordered Zambia Air Force to give UPND flying rights to allow them to transport monitors to the places that are voting today.

The chairman of ECZ says they have faced unprecedented challenges due to the weather and gave an example of Mitete in Western Province where they are using boats and oxcats to transport election materials.

All results are already announced at the polling centres and ECZ says people and organizations are free to tabulate "but should not speculate false results to avoid confusion" (which everybody of course will anyway...).

Next press briefing will be at 17 PM today, but the announcement of results will not resume until tomorrow at 10 AM. Since ECZ will continue to receive and tabulate results as they come in the Thursday 10 AM announcement should be a 99%+ result.

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politicus
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	Re: Zambia presidential by-election - January 20, 2015 « Reply #155 on: January 21, 2015, 12:26:54 PM »
	« Edited: January 21, 2015, 12:29:07 PM by Charlotte Hebdo »

Transparancy International Zambia has published their results from the 60 out of 150 constituencies counted so far by them on their webpage:

http://www.tizambia.org.zm/?page_id=1037

Total Valid votes cast – 851,818

So Lungu 55% vs. Hichilema 41%

No info on what constituencies are included, but it looks like a done deal.

Also proves the ZW version of TIZ numbers from this morning were fictional.

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politicus
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	Re: Zambia presidential by-election - January 20, 2015 « Reply #156 on: January 21, 2015, 12:34:59 PM »
	« Edited: January 21, 2015, 12:48:59 PM by Charlotte Hebdo »

The SADC Council of NGOs election observation mission calls the election credible and notes that the polling day was peaceful and people cast their votes without coercion, undue influence or intimidation. Still, it is the counting of the votes that has been questioned, not the process itself.

There were 140 polling stations where people didn't get to vote yesterday and so far only 51 of them will get a reelection, so they are giving up on some. There are bout 7000 polling stations, so it wont change anything, but still problematic - but it looks like the conditions are simply too bad.

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Afrolyte
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Re: Zambia presidential by-election - January 20, 2015

« Reply #157 on: January 21, 2015, 01:42:23 PM »

I'd be glad to answer some of the questions by Lincoln Poacher in a post above.

Lincolnshire Poacher:
"- I am aware that UPND and especially HH are running on an essentially free market ticket (which is hardly surprising given his role in the privatisation process)."

Answer: UPND under HH has not been running on a free market ticket for a long time. But during these elections, he has been running on a somewhat free market ticket (which has given some credence to the rumor that he is being sponsored by the Oppenheimers etc in South Africa). All along he has been vocally criticizing the PF for not fulfilling their promise of "windfall taxes" on the mines, etc. Now (just before the election) he suddenly started sounding quite tax friendly to foreign investors etc. However, he is also running on a very high expense ticket by basically promising everything to everyone -- free! (free education for everyone immediately, lifting of wage freeze on civil servants, restoration of the massive subsidies on fuel and maize (corn), reduced prices on food, free loans to just about everyone, ...)

Had he won the election, he would have had a lot of trouble getting reelected since he was inevitably going to have to break most of these promises (low tax revenues with high expenditure; low unemployment, low inflation?): since the next election is only in 2016, that won't be enough time for people to forget the broken promises.

Poacher: " However, what about the PF? I know that under Sata there was not really much evidence of any consistent ideology...is the Lungu wing more economically liberal? I think this is important because, though none of the parties may exactly have a coherent economic plan, one of the things which seems to distinguish Zambia from most other African states is that elections have recently been at least partly about substantive policy choices..."

Yes, Zambia has traditionally had quite a lot of policy debates in elections for a long time. However, the split in the PF was not on ideological grounds at all. It was simply a power struggle. And the bulk of the campaigns by all parties around the country consists of populist promises with very little discussion of "how."

PF still doesn't have a consistent ideology, under Sata or Guy Scott or Lungu. Ideology became unpopular among intellectuals in Zambia after they got disillusioned by both the socialist experiment of the first president Kenneth Kaunda, and the ostensibly capitalist experiment of his successor Frederick Chiluba. This is why the UPND changed its own manifesto from a free market one when they were opposing Chiluba to a left of center one while it was still under Mazoka, ie even before HH took over.

Poacher: "- Is it really the case that the Copperbelt will vote differently to the two Northern Bemba provinces this time?"

Answer: Not possible.

Poacher:"- Lastly, though its pretty common to see senior figures moving between parties, I do not remember this happening to anything like this extent while elections have been going on, with some big names endorsing rival party candidates. Is there any good explanation for this?"

Firstly, there are no ideological differences among the parties, so movement among them is quite easy! Movements are motivated just by power bets (they need jobs in cabinet or embassies abroad). When Sata died and the PF (and the MMD) had a huge power struggle, HH looked like he was destined to win. So, some PF leaders strategically endorsed him, and some MMD leaders also endorsed him. When the MMD and PF fixed their issues, the MMD looked much more damaged, while the PF managed to reconcile most of the differences. (Small corrections to Charlotte Hebdo here: Mulenga Sata, former president Sata's son, did endorse Lungu and spoke at his rally, contrary to reports by the Zambian Watchdog; and Sampa did not form an alternative party, he too endorsed Lungu). The fixed PF attracted some calculating MMD leaders, although many had already jumped to HH while he was looking strong and it was too late to reverse camp now.

I don't believe there is a bigger metanarrative beyond that.

Finally. Lungu will win this one decisively, but what is unclear is 2016. The time is so short that the winner will have to break too many of their generous campaign promises, especially coming at a time when copper prices are low.

Charlotte Hebdo: Are you Zambian?

Answer: Yes! (And thank you for welcoming me here! Je suis Charlie.)

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politicus
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	Re: Zambia presidential by-election - January 20, 2015 « Reply #158 on: January 21, 2015, 02:41:42 PM »
	« Edited: January 21, 2015, 02:44:34 PM by Charlotte Hebdo »

Quote from: Afrolyte on January 21, 2015, 01:42:23 PM

This is why the UPND changed its own manifesto from a free market one when they were opposing Chiluba to a left of center one while it was still under Mazoka, ie even before HH took over.

Their election manifesto this time was actually fairly consistently social liberal with a focus on enabling people to take care of themselves (free education, land reform, abolishing restrictions on businesses etc.) combined with fiscal conservatism (no loan financing of infrastructure, no tax hikes) and public-private partnership on infrastructure. In the actual campaign they went with pure populism. I assume the manifesto was mostly window dressing, but it was fairly consistent ideologically. Was it targeted at foreign donors?

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