For Lungu, the opportunity beckons to cement his hold on Zambian politics after the narrowest of victories 18 months ago, in the wake of Michael Sata\u2019s death.<\/p>\n
His victory margin, less than 1%, reflected popular disenchantment with worsening economic conditions and infighting in his party.<\/p>\n
Hichilema came tantalisingly close last time around, and is now buoyed by an economy on the back foot, citizens up in arms over increased living costs, low copper prices and the loss of jobs in the Copperbelt, electricity blackouts and support from former political adversaries from the PF.<\/p>\n
Functioning more like a close-knit political family bonded by ties of blood, kinship and close personal friendships rather than political ideology, the PF rapidly crumbled after Sata\u2019s unexpected death in 2014 into a vicious political dogfight.<\/p>\n
The departure of the strongman who had held everything together sparked a poisonous cocktail of naked ambition and political skulduggery, which saw many of the PF\u2019s original band of leaders sidelined or expelled from the party they had helped to build.<\/p>\n
Many of Lungu\u2019s party colleagues have defected to the UPND. Old PF grandees, such as Guy Scott, who served as vice-president under Sata and as acting president in the transition leading up to Lungu\u2019s ascendancy in January last year, and others, such as Geoffrey Bwalya Mwamba, the former PF defence minister, have joined Hichilema\u2019s campaign, crisscrossing the country on the hustings and bolstering the UPND\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n
This, and the fact that the PF seems to be heading for electoral defeat, has lent the contest an intensely personal dynamic. It is a fight to the death, with much blood on the floor \u2013 more Cain versus Abel than David versus Goliath.<\/p>\n
The personal antagonism underpins unprecedented levels of pre-election violence and harassment, mainly directed at opponents of the PF. Frequent attacks on campaigners, largely in UPND red, have resulted in a number of deaths and serious injuries.<\/p>\n
“Vote Edgar Lungu”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n On July 28, 28 UPND members appeared in court charged with being in possession of petrol bombs and other dangerous weapons.<\/p>\n The police, who are quick to detain suspects if they are opposition supporters, have not shown a similar enthusiasm for acting against ruling party members.<\/p>\n Opposition members have also been sorely provoked. In one case in late July a PF campaign helicopter trailing a \u201cVote Edgar Lungu\u201d banner hovered above a UPND rally in Lusaka for about 30 minutes before flying off.<\/p>\n In the midst of the fear and uncertainty, Zambians have been grappling with an economic meltdown caused by lower copper prices, erratic economic policy shifts \u2013 especially in the key mining sector \u2013 electricity shortages and poor rainfall, suppressing economic activity and raising inflation.<\/p>\n All indications suggest the International Monetary Fund will have returned to Zambia by October with a rescue package of economic reforms, after targets were agreed in talks earlier year this between the IMF and government representatives.<\/p>\n “<\/em><\/strong>We did everything correctly and our price was right”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Accusations and counteraccusations have flown thick and fast in the election campaign. There have been repeated claims of election rigging, including the listing of ghost voters on the electoral roll, revelations of the PF\u2019s recruitment of close to half a million voters from neighbouring Malawi and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and questions about the costly printing of ballot papers in Dubai.<\/p>\n The combined opposition and civil society objected strongly to the decision by the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) to award the tender for printing ballot papers to Al Ghurair Printing and Publishing Company, accusing it of being in cahoots with Lungu\u2019s government.<\/p>\n It was alleged that in February 2016 Al Ghurair printed ballot papers for the Ugandan elections, which were marred by allegations of irregularity.<\/p>\n Deepening suspicions was the cost of the work. Of the 13 companies vying for the printing contract, the Johannesburg-based Ren-Form cc printing company \u2013 which had won the contract on three previous occasions \u2013 lodged the cheapest bid, $1.7 million, with Al Ghurair coming in at $3.6m.<\/p>\n Jan Pierre du Sart, Ren-Form\u2019s sales director, said ECZ rejected his company\u2019s tender \u201cdespite having gone through all the correct procedures. We did everything correctly and our price was right.\u201d<\/p>\n He said the company had printed 30-million ballot papers for South Africa\u2019s local government elections \u2013 one of \u201cmore than 50 electoral projects in 22 African countries\u201d.<\/p>\n Following an appeal by Ren-Form to the Zambia Public Procurement Authority, the authority directed the ECZ to re-evaluate the Ren-Form tender, but to no avail.<\/p>\n “<\/em><\/strong>There is no substantive proof”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n Of all the allegations against the government, the most damning has been the appearance of large numbers of foreign voters on the electoral roll. The ECZ dismissed the concerns, despite compelling evidence published by The Post<\/em> of the names and identity numbers of Malawians.<\/p>\n The commission insisted that voters are registered on the presumption that they meet the prescribed voting age, based on their national registration card.<\/p>\n The card is issued by the government, not the commission, argued the ECZ\u2019s media relations manager Chris Akufuna, who added that the police are investigating claims of fraud in the registration process.<\/p>\n So far, the police have remained tight-lipped.<\/p>\n Extraordinarily, given the liaison and collaboration between the region\u2019s various electoral bodies, the electoral commission\u2019s Sangwani Mwafulirwa told amaBhungane that he was \u201cnot aware of the list\u201d of Malawians published by The Post<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cWe cannot take a position on the list, about whether the people mentioned are registered voters in Malawi, because we do not have the particulars of the persons on the list,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But in interviews with The Post<\/em>, several Malawians said it was not the first time they had registered to vote in Zambian elections and that Zambians had similarly previously registered to vote in Malawi.<\/p>\n Questioned on the allegations, Mwafulirwa said: \u201cThere is no substantive proof \u2026 that Zambians have been registering to vote in Malawi.\u201d<\/p>\n He said Malawi is embarking on a national registration exercise to enhance the voter identification system. He added: \u201cWe believe ECZ is a professional body that has put in place strict measures to deter illegal voter registrations.\u201d<\/p>\n Personal rivalry, divisions in the ruling party and a failing economy heighten the election contest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22497,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/250x106.jpg\")
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