by Patson Phiri – SANF 06 No 85
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) has described the Zambian elections as peaceful, transparent, well-managed and credible.
SADC had a 49-member team that observed the 28 September Zambian polls. The SADC Election Observer Mission (SEOM) was headed by the United Republic of Tanzania’s Minister for Good Governance, Philip Marmo.
In a preliminary statement issued on 30 September, Marmo praised Zambians for showing political maturity and exemplary tolerance before, during and after the voting.
Addressing journalists, Marmo said “… the SADC mission wishes to sincerely state that SADC is proud of Zambian political leadership and the electoral management authorities.”
The SADC observers, who comprised of 37 men and 12 women, also hailed Zambia’s Electoral Act and the Electoral Code of Conduct, with Marmo saying the legislation fully complies with SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections.
Since its deployment on 21 September, the mission covered all nine provinces of Zambia and attended some political rallies.
Marmo said the civil behaviour and enthusiasm demonstrated during the campaigning period, vote casting and counting processes bear testimony of total commitment and adherence to the laws and regulations governing electoral processes in Zambia.
“In all the provinces, the situation was calm and political activities were conducted peacefully and in a tolerant atmosphere,” Marmo said.
While noting the logistical problems in getting voting materials to some remote constituencies, the SADC observers said they were generally happy with the overall administration of the voting process.
The mission called for improved communication between political parties and the police to avoid postponement of political party activities.
These were Zambia’s fourth multiparty elections since 1991 when the country’s first post-independence president, Kenneth Kaunda, lost to trade unionist, Fredrick Chiluba, in the presidential polls.
Chiluba’s former party, the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), has ruled Zambia for the past 15 years and looked set to continue its grip on Zambian politics as preliminary results showed incumbent president, Levy Mwanawasa, leading his rivals.
Mwanawasa garnered a comfortable 43 percent of total votes counted by 2 October, according to results from the Electoral Commission of Zambia.
The Zambian leader was trailing to veteran politician Michael Sata in the initial vote-counting process but turned tables to take a run-away lead when vote-counting finished in 135 of the 150 constituencies in which some 2,477,641 registered voters cast ballots.
Only 15 seats with 400,000 registered voters were yet to be counted. Five of these seats are in Mwanawasa’s stronghold.
Some 2.8 million people or about 70 percent of the 3.9 million eligible voters cast their ballots in the 150 constituencies.
