The Cult of Democracy

in #africa8 years ago

Zambia just saw an end to its General Election, on one side was Edgar Lungu, current president and heir to now deceased president, Michael Sata. Between them, their Patriotic Front party has seen the malaise stated below. On the other side, Hakainde Hichilema, self made millionaire and economist and administrator. Here are the stats:

Zambia has around 16 million people.

60% of its people are living below the poverty line.

In 2011 inflation was at 6%, five years later 22%.

GDP annual growth has fallen from 6.7% to under 3.5% (estimate) in the same timeframe with a 2012 high of 7.3%.

Currency trading to US Dollar ($) in 2011 was at K5.13 : $1, 5 years later K10.3 : $1.

In 2011, the country's debt was 14.7% of GDP and currently sits at an alarming 40.87% of GDP.

We've seen commodity prices double in three years.

And we have just rewarded the same government with another 5 years in power. Wanna know how? This is democracy for ya:

Of Zambia's 16 million people, 8.5 million are eligible voters. Of those voters only 3.6 million turned up to vote. 22.5% of the country's population. Of that figure, final stats from the elctoral commission suggest votes for current President Edgar Lungu totalled 50.35% of the total vote.

Meaning 1.8 million people, or 11.25% of the country's population actively sought his reelection.

The countries next 5 years was decided by 11% of its population.

And this all happened amongst the following accusations of electoral fraud:

  1. G12 forms were withheld from our polling agents after the initial release, meaning they were not able to verify the results. The totalling process cannot be legitimately completed without these and the only way to now verify them transparently is to recount the votes in the presence of all stakeholders.
    Note the form was initially being released but then halted in Lusaka. We believe this was a deliberate move to leave results open in Lusaka so the PF could boost their numbers as required on the basis of results coming in from the other provinces.
  2. During the delays with the G12 there was widespread intimidation at polling stations including Kamwala basic school in Kabwata and Olympia school in Mandevu where PF agents physically kicked out our agents during the counting process.
  3. Dr. Mwanawasa uncovered a discrepancy of 14,000 votes in the Kanyama presidential vote, across a total of 20 polling streams. Informed by her agent that numbers were not adding up she came to the totalling centre to find the missing results literally thrown in the bin. Once retrieved our vote share went from 17,985 to 32,024.
    This is just one constituency and we know they have rolled out a similar scheme across Lusaka.
  4. Instances where a higher number of votes were cast than registered voters. For example at Kamanga polling station in Munali 714 more votes than registered voters were recorded.
  5. Discovery of pre-marked ballots outside of ZAF HQ as late as Sunday morning. We are filing a legal case to present the evidence on this matter.
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