Decision 2008, Zambia Style

The campaign is finally in full swing. Election day is October 30^th, which means the candidates have just over a month to convince everyone of their ability to be Zambia’s next president. Except that, from talking with most Zambians around here, that won’t matter much at all. The general feeling is that the election of 2006 was rigged, and that this one may be too.

There are three main candidates, but two front runners:

Rupiah Banda. He was President Mwanawasa’s Vice President, he’s serving as the current acting president. The general feeling, at least around Lusaka, is against him. There have been corruption accusations. The national TV station, ZNBC, is being accused to covering Banda more than the other candidates. The politically independent newspaper The Post is reporting that Banda wants to stop them from speaking out against him.

People say that in 2006, when he and Mwanawa were running for re-election, that the highest population areas, Lusaka and the Copper Belt, all voted for the opponent, Michael Sata. The votes that reelected Mwanawasa and Banda all seemed to come from remote areas of the country. Those votes took days to travel into Lusaka, and the numbers of votes coming in seemed inconsistent with how many people could reasonably be registered in any of those places. So their entire administration is questionable, and people don’t seem excited to continue it. On the extreme end, I’ve heard that if Banda wins, people will again say the election was rigged, and there may be protests. In addition, his opponent is the very person who they say he stole the election from two years ago.

Michael Sata. He was Minister of Health in the 1990s and people say he was able to bring about change. At multiple health centers, I’ve heard stories of him coming on his own, just to spend time at the clinic and see how things were going. People around here really seem to have faith in him. I have yet to talk to a Zambian in Lusaka who is not voting for Sata. On the most extreme end though, I’ve heard that he would almost go the way of Mugabe in Zimbabwe and kick out all the non-Zambians. But most people have explained that he just wants more Zambians running business, and he would not go so far as to kick out NGOs or aid workers and such.

I suspect as the campaign goes on, the claims of corruption will increase. It should certainly be an interesting month.

To reassure all of you a bit, should you be worried, the US embassy is not overly concerned about the elections at this point in time. More updates later.