Post date: Sep 22, 2011 1:44:29 PM
LUSAKA, ZAMBIA (SEPTEMBER 22, 2011) REUTERS - Zambians are waiting to learn who will lead the country after more than half the votes counted puts opposition leader Michael Sata ahead over incumbent Rupiah Banda.
Zambia's opposition leader Michael Sata held on to his lead over incumbent Rupiah Banda, the election commission said, as counting moved beyond a halfway point on Thursday (September 22) in the race to become the next president of Africa's biggest copper producer.
Police said riots had broken out in the two main towns in the Copper Belt as people expressed frustration at a delay in tallying the results of Tuesday's election.
According to the latest confirmed tally from 85 of 150 constituencies, opposition leader Michael Sata had 639,787 votes against 542,362 for incumbent President Rupiah Banda of the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD).
The vote count has been slowed by hackers attacking the website of the Election Commission, posting a string of false results showing Sata in the lead and causing delays to the release of the official tally.
"We still have 49 constituencies who have not yet finished tallying the results and they will be sending them to Lusaka as soon as they finish that tallying which they are doing at the constituency level. Much as we may want speed but we cannot sacrifice correct results at the expense of speed, so, I appeal to Zambians to be calm and wait until we have these results and we verify them," said Ireen Mambilima, the chairperson for the Electoral Commission of Zambia.
It may now take until the weekend for a complete result to be known.
"Zambia is a peace loving country, don't provoke people, please start announcing, finish the announcements before the d-day. You are wasting people's time to know the status of the new leader, we know we are supposed to have a new leader. Please don't force us to start running," said Nebert Shawa, a Lusaka resident.
Another Lusaka resident, Paul Lungu, said it was time for political change in Zambia.
"MMD has been in power for a long time, so I think for a change after 20 years we expect a new political party to take over, maybe they can have better ideas rather than what the MMD guys have. It's like they are running out of ideas now," Lungu said.
Election officials are running double and triple checks with regional counting centres. Banda is expected to perform more strongly in the countryside, which is likely to report votes more slowly than Sata's strongholds in the capital, Lusaka, and the northern Copper Belt, the country's economic heartland. It is therefore too early to say whether Sata is on the verge of an historic transfer of power in the former British colony, removing the MMD from the presidency for the first time since the end of one-party rule in 1991.
Sata, known as "King Cobra" for his vicious tongue, has toned down his rhetoric against foreign mining firms, most notably those from China. But a victory for the 74-year-old would still cloud the investment outlook for what has been one of frontier Africa's most attractive prospects. He lost to Banda, also 74, by just 35,000 votes, or 2 percent of the electorate, in a 2008 presidential run-off triggered by the death in office of Levy Mwanawasa.
Political risk analysts said a Sata defeat might trigger unrest although added that it would be short-lived and have no impact on copper output or the wider economy.