Zambia: An Election Against All Odds

Vote for Presidential Elections, Babak Fakhamzadeh, Creative Commons

Through an unprecedented voter turnout, the Zambian people recently united to oust an authoritarian regime — overcoming the odds in an election that is surely a bright spot for democracy on the continent.

It is not common for an incumbent to lose an election in Africa. Only a handful have lost power and gracefully conceded defeat. These include Arthur Mutharika in Malawi, Goodluck Jonathan in Nigeria and now Edgar Lungu in Zambia. This is because Africa is littered with sham elections, often held to simply confirm or legitimize the incumbent’s hold on power and not to reflect the will of the people.

The toolkit includes manipulation of electoral laws; strategic use of political violence; doctoring of voter registers; abuse of public resources; gerrymandering of electoral boundaries; political capture and control of electoral management bodies; and the massaging of election results. It is in this general context that Zambia, in August 2021, had a peaceful transfer of power by ballot — marking the country’s third such peaceful change of government.

The achievement, however, should not mask the complex and difficult context in which the election was held, making it an election against all odds. The election of President Lungu in 2015 marked the sharp decline in Zambia’s democratic credentials as Lungu ruled largely by fear and repression. Under his watch, police were responsible for several instances of extrajudicial killings, brutalizing civilians, arbitrary arrest of critics of Lungu, and persecution of the opposition. Ruling party hooligans were empowered to monopolise public spaces such as bus stations, violently beat opposition supporters and civil society critics.

To further close political space, the Lungu regime resorted to lawfare, often using laws and criminal justice institutions to arrest and prosecute critics, and passed laws to limit freedom of speech in cyberspace. COVID-19 protocols were equally used to crowd out civil society and opposition, leaving the ruling party to monopolise political space.

This situation was compounded by lack of independence and professionalism by key institutions responsible for the electoral process. In a clear case of institutional collusion involving the Electoral Commission, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the judiciary, voter registration was conducted in a manner that disadvantaged voters from then perceived opposition provinces.

Less than a year before elections, the Electoral Commission (illegally) announced the abolition of the voter register and embarked on a new process of voter registration. In Zambia, it is a requirement that one can only register to vote if they have been issued with a national registration card (NRC). The Ministry of Home Affairs prioritized the issuance of NRCs in then perceived ruling party provinces, effectively disenfranchising many people in opposition areas. Civil society organisations challenged this development in the Constitutional Court. The Court inexplicably never heard the case and more than a year later, the matter is still pending.

“Despite living under a repressive regime, people still believed in the power of democracy and trusted that their vote would count.”

Against all these odds, how did the Zambian voters manage to oust an authoritarian regime? There are several factors that coalesced to ensure a smooth democratic process. First is the economy. Through massive corruption, heavy borrowing, incompetence and lack of foresight, the Lungu regime ran down the economy, triggering a domestic economic crisis that left many people destitute. The Zambian currency lost more than half its value against the South African rand — Zambia’s largest trading partner. As a result, many ordinary Zambians could no longer afford food and other daily basics. By June 2021, for example, the price of live chickens had increased by 75 percent from the preceding year, while the cost of other foods such as vegetables, cooking oil, eggs, meat, and fish rose by more than 50 percent.

The hardship emanating from the economic crisis united the country against the Lungu regime. This was manifest in an unprecedented voter turnout in recent times of about 70 percent and the unequivocal victory of the opposition with nearly 60 percent of the vote. Without this massive turnout and the resounding win by the opposition, it could have been easy to manipulate the electoral outcome. This showed that despite living under a repressive regime, people still believed in the power of democracy and trusted that their vote would count. Without this faith, the democratic transition from one regime to another would have been impossible.

The second factor that played in favour of the democratic process is the role of Western embassies, donors and multilateral agencies. Although these no longer wield as much influence as they did in the 1990s when a significant share of the national budget was donor funded, they still have a measure of influence and play a key legitimatizing role to the electoral process. While these either took a clear partisan role in favour of the ruling party in 2016 (UNDP, for example, antagonised the opposition in favour of the ruling party) or were largely indifferent, in 2021 they were actively engaged throughout the electoral process and their voices in favour of democracy were relatively stronger.

This emboldened domestic civil society in demanding a credible election and holding government and the Electoral Commission accountable at every stage of the process. Once it was clear that Lungu had lost the election, the Western embassies, together with other stakeholders, were actively involved in the background, persuading Lungu to concede defeat and leave peacefully. Considering that Lungu had disputed the election and wanted to challenge the outcome in the Constitutional Court (staffed by judges appointed by Lungu himself), Lungu’s concession of defeat and peaceful exit is in part due to the positive role played by these agencies.

Third, election observers played a key role in debunking the myth that Lungu lost because the election was rigged against him in pro-opposition provinces. Once it became clear that Lungu was headed for defeat, his party concocted a narrative that the ruling party poll agents were violently chased from polling stations in opposition strongholds, allowing the opposition to stuff ballot boxes.

Reports from several election observers, including the well-respected Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG) and the European Union Election Observation Mission demonstrated that the narrative was false. The parallel vote tabulation (PVT) undertaken by CCMG also confirmed the results, leaving Lungu without any excuse for holding onto power.

Finally, the military played a subtle but key role in the electoral process. A few days before the election, Lungu deployed the military across the country. Although it is clear that Lungu hoped that the presence of the military would trigger fear and force the people into voting for his regime, the military did not play along.

The military instead played a professional role, refusing to intervene at any stage to save Lungu, and letting the democratic process play out to its end. Deployment of the military also had the effect of crowing out the compromised and partisan police as well as unruly ruling party supporters from the electoral process.

Under these circumstances, the Electoral Commission of Zambia had no choice but to announce the will of the people.