Election concerns

As campaigning for Thursday's general elections reached a climax in Zambia this week, election monitors expressed concern at the increased incidence of political violence in parts of the country. The Foundation for Democratic Process (Fodep), a church-backed NGO, said inter-party clashes were most evident in the northern mining Copperbelt Province and the northern rural Luapula Provinces – and that ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) supporters appeared to be the instigators. Fodep national secretary Alex Ng'oma said MMD cadres in Kitwe and Ndola towns in Copperbelt Province had been on the rampage over the past few days, brandishing assorted weapons and stripping naked people clad in opposition attire. Last Friday, MMD militants stormed the home of a parliamentary candidate of the opposition Heritage Party in Ndola and assaulted his father. MMD supporters were also said to have raided and robbed a shop belonging to a candidate of the opposition United National Independence Party, who had ignored a 24-hour ultimatum to join the ruling party. Police said they were investigating both incidents. "We are very concerned at the level of political violence in the province. We fear that if these skirmishes are not contained, the elections will be adversely affected," Fodep national secretary Alex Ng'oma told IRIN. Meanwhile, relative calm returned to Luapula Province this week after sporadic inter-party clashes pitted MMD supporters against supporters of the opposition Zambia Republican Party last week. Fodep coordinator for Luapula Province Miriam Chinyama said campaigning in the area was now peaceful following police intervention. Election monitors in the other provinces said campaigning had been violence-free so far. They, however, expressed concerns that administrative lapses and rains could disrupt or delay the voting. Coalition 2001, an umbrella group of civil society organisations set up to monitor the polls, said the failure of the government-appointed Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) to issue election monitoring groups with identification cards in good time meant that they would be unable to monitor the voting in parts of the country. "Despite having set the deadline of submission of names, and despite announcing what clearly now are unreasonable and unpractical regulations, the commission has lamentably failed to meet its own deadline, thereby creating animosity and anxiety among stakeholders," Coalition 2001 said in a statement released on Tuesday. "At this stage, it is difficult whether to attribute the shortcomings to mere incompetence or (to the fact) that the shortcomings are a part of the grand design to create problems in the electoral process," Coalition 2001 said. Earlier, confusion marked a series of workshops the ECZ organised for returning and presiding officers over the weekend as the venue of the workshops – Lusaka's Nakatindi Hall – proved too small to accommodate all the participants. "As if the ECZ was not aware of the forthcoming election, it was only since last Wednesday that they have been conducting some semblance of training workshops for the agents and officers, but obviously this is not enough as many have expressed ignorance on various procedures as a result of various shortcomings," Coalition 2001 said. Meanwhile, weather forecasters are predicting a wet 27 December in at least parts of the country. There have been widespread concern by opposition parties and election monitors that rains would deter many people from voting. Voter apathy and organisational problems earlier conspired to reduce the numbers of people expected to register to vote. Monitors said the fact that the elections would be held in the middle of the festive season, meant that still more people would not vote even if the weather permitted. "There has been a deliberate ploy in place for much of the year to disenfranchise the voters, especially those in the rural areas of this vast country and the ruling party is the only institution that has the resources to get out there in the areas where heavy rains have rendered the situation impassable," the coalition's spokesman, Ngande Mwanajiti, reportedly said.