Frederick Chiluba’s new government is increasingly embroiled in controversy, reports Anthony Kunda in Lusaka
EVIDENCE has emerged from election results released by the government-constituted Zambian Electoral Commission that the outcome of the polls on November 18 may well have been fixed before the polling day.
There are several instances of strange and inexplicable uniformity in election results in many constituencies. In some constituencies, the number of people who voted was more than the number of registered voters, giving credence to the opposition’s claims that “ghost voters” had been used by the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) to manipulate the results.
In Chipata and Luangeni constituencies, both in the Eastern Province, President Frederick Chiluba and all his rivals – Dean Mungomba of the Zambia Democratic Congress, Humphrey Mulemba of the National Party, Aka Lewanika of Agenda for Zambia and Chama Chakomboka of the Movement for Democratic Process got exactly the same number of votes.
Chiluba won 7 720 votes in both constituencies. Mungomba got 2 169, Mulemba won 386, Lewanika 365 and Chakomboka 214.
In Mwinilunga constituency in the North- Western Province, Chiluba won 5 647, and in Mpika constituency in the Northern Province, he got 5 649 – a difference of only two votes.
In the constituency of Chipangali, Eastern Province, Chiluba gained 3 323 votes, compared to 3 322 in Serenje in the Central Province – a discrepancy of just one vote. In Dundumwzi in the Southern Province, he got a suspiciously similar 3 326.
In Magoye in the Southern Province, Chiluba received 6 065 votes, compared to 6 066 in Mababala in the Central Province, while in Malole and Lukashya, Chiluba got 8 953, and 8 950 respectively – just three votes difference.
Officials from several local election monitoring groups, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of victimisation, said ghost voters may have boosted Chiluba’s vote count by as much as 300 000 votes.
Alfred Zulu, chairman of the Zambia Independent Monitoring Team (ZIMT), who is already facing trial on as yet unspecified charges, nevertheless ventured to say: “This is not normal. It shows that there has been some manipulation going on. This pattern of vote counts tallying in two or three constituencies is unusual.”
Ngande Mwanajiti, executive chairman of the Zambian branch of Afronet, an international human rights organisation, said: “These revelations give credence to what we have been saying all along. All things will have to be examined to determine who has been lying.”
Mwanajiti, who is also chairman for the National Committee for Clean Campaign (NCCC), is also facing trial on unspecified charges. Both he and Zulu are out on bail.
But Lucy Sichone, executive director of the Zambia Civic Education Association, said the outcome painted in bolder relief the MMD’s draconian reaction to those who have rubbished the election as fraudulent.
Sichone said Chiluba’s government was working at crushing dissenters to “escape the consequences of their actions. But it will not work. The MMD is an illegal government.”
Dr Simon Mwewa, the elections chairman in the opposition United National Independent Party (Unip), said his party had known about the election results as far back as January this year.
Mwewa said the MMD had planned to “rig the elections in such a way that they would end up with at least 100 seats, Unip with 40 seats and other opposition parties scrambling for less than five seats. We foresaw all this, that’s why we pulled out.”
He did not want to disclose where he had received the information, for fear of reprisals.
The MMD has ended up with 120 seats, out of a total 150. The opposition – excluding Unip which pulled out of the running in early October – has ended up with 20 seats.
But Justice Bobby Bwalya, the chairman of the Zambian Electoral Commission, outrightly dismissed any possibility of rigging, in the face of the suspect figures uncovered by his own organisation.
Earlier this week he became hysterical when independent journalists tried to interview Joel Sikazwe, election press liaison officer for the commission. He angrily threatened to beat anyone who tried to gain entry into his office.
However, Bwalya was agreeable to talking to state-media journalists. He told them: “There were no ghost voters anywhere. Those stories are pure imagination.”
The election office is now being guarded by heavily armed soldiers and paramilitary police, 24 hours a day.
Early last week, Chiluba accused non- government organisations involved in election monitoring of receiving funds from the Swedish, United States, British and Japanese embassies for aiding their work.
He ordered searches of their offices, froze their bank accounts, and arrested several of their officials after they had declared the elections fraudulent.
Chiluba this week again justified this clampdown, and his charging of Zulu and Sikazwe under Chapter 109, Section Four of a Zambian law which states: “No organisation shall, except with the prior approval of the president in writing, accept assistance from any foreign government.”
But George Kunda, spokesperson for the Law Association of Zambia, said the law had been deliberately twisted. “ZIMT and NCCC do not pursue political agendas of any sort,” he said. “This Act talks about organisations involved explicitly in politics.”
Chiluba’s newly appointed Cabinet has been labelled by independent commentators as tribalist. Twenty-two of the 25 Cabinet ministers are drawn from the Bemba-speaking Northern and Luapula provinces. Chiluba himself is a Bemba from Luapula Province.
Analysts have said the Cabinet rejig is nothing more than a game of political chairs – the reconstituted Cabinet still includes the same people, for the most part – and that this won’t do much to improve the country’s declining economy.