Kenneth Kaunda won’t be alone in contesting this week’s poll outcome. Anthony Kunda reports from Lusaka
ZAMBIAN President Frederick Chiluba bagged a hollow victory in this week’s presidential elections: only 26% of those who voted cast ballots in his favour.
He drew support from fewer than 600 000 voters – or just 13% of the total 4,6- million Zambians eligible to vote.
Only 2,3-million people registered as voters, according to the elections office press liaison officer, Joel Sikazwe. Slightly fewer than one million actually voted, he said.
In the light of these figures, Law Association of Zambia chairman Sakwiba Sikota charged that the Chiluba government lacked legitimacy: “This is something like a coup, only the instruments used are legal,” he said.
Claims that the elections were not free and fair have come from Ngande Mwanajiti, chairman of the National Committee for Clean Campaign – an umbrella body encompassing several monitoring groups. Chiluba’s Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) had engaged in blatant vote-buying, disinformation and manipulation of the government-owned media in the run-up to the elections, he said this week.
But even before the polls closed on Monday, Sydney Chellah, chairman of the monitoring group Patriotic Rescue Monitors (Paremo), said on state-run television: “We think the elections have been free and fair.”
However, secretary general of the Zambia Independent Monitoring Team, which is sponsored by international donors, Geoffrey Musonda, said it was not possible for Paremo, formed barely three weeks ago, to monitor national elections effectively.
Pressed to disclose Paremo’s sources of funding, Chellah said the donors included several top members of the ruling MMD. “But there is nothing wrong with that because we still maintain our independence,” he said.
The Christian Monitoring Group, led by the Christian Council of Zambia, also declared the elections free and fair. But the group’s spokesperson admitted that the group only monitored Lusaka.
The Zambia Democratic Congress (ZDP), the biggest opposition party to have taken part in the elections, has condemned the election outcome.
According to its president, Dean Mungomba: “This election is fraudulent. MMD has rigged the result. We therefore do not recognise the elected government. The electoral registers were deeply flawed, and this has been proved beyond all doubt.”
Mungomba said the wide margins of defeat called the whole election into question. In most of the constituencies, Chiluba’s MMD scooped more than 90% of the votes cast. “The margins of defeat announced do not make sense,” he said.
National Lima Party chairman Dr Guy Scott similarly said his party will not recognise the outcome. “The results are not a true reflection of the party’s performance. We will therefore not recognise Chiluba’s and MMD’s victory.”
But Labour Party general secretary Paul Kapongo, whose party, like Kenneth Kaunda’s United National Independence Party, boycotted the elections, said: “It seems that there is very little that will change until 2001, apart from lobbying the donor community to squeeze MMD to back down.”
Kaunda, on the other hand, plans a civil disobedience campaign. He told the press after meeting with donor community officials: “We shall make this country ungovernable. But we will do it peacefully. I believe in non-violence. I fought the colonialists peacefully, I am going to do the same.”
Chiluba, meanwhile, said that the MMD will continue to engage in dialogue with the opposition parties. “We will continue to talk, because that is the essence of democracy,” he said.
Others say he is bluffing. Dr Jotham Moomba, associate professor of political science at the University of Zambia, said: “It’s naive for anyone to think that Chiluba will engage in any meaningful dialogue after this. He has got what he wanted. It was even naive of opposition parties like ZDC to expect Chiluba to prepare an election that would see him out of office.”
And Lusaka lawyer Sakeza Sakesa commented: “An electoral process is like a computer. If the system is fraudulent, the outcome will be fraudulent. Garbage in is garbage out.”