Zambia's electoral body suspends announcement of election results

Zambia's electoral body on Wednesday suspended the announcement of official results of a presidential election held on Tuesday in order to allow people who did not vote to cast their ballots with a free mind.

Meanwhile, voter apathy characterized the presidential election held on Tuesday to choose a successor to late President Michael Sata.

The Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) has so far announced results of the presidential election in 13 constituencies which show Patriotic Front (PF) candidate Edgar Lungu taking an early lead.

According to official results posted on the ECZ website, from 13 out of the 150 constituencies announced, Lungu garnered 92,026 votes compared to 44,902 for his main rival Hakainde Hichilema of the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND).

ECZ chairperson Justice Ireen Mambilima said during a press briefing that the commission decided to suspend the release of the official results until Thursday in order to allow voters in polling centers that did not cast their ballots with a free mind.

"We have faced unprecedented challenges in the conduct of this election due to the weather. Much as we have the tally so far we cannot give this tally because we must allow voters in the other polling stations to cast their votes with a free mind. We don't want the announcement of the results to influence their voting," she said.

She said the commission will resume the announcement of the official results on Thursday morning and warned stakeholders to wait for the official results from the commission which will only be released after a thorough verification process.

Mambilima further urged people to be wary of organizations that are releasing results on social media, saying such results should not be relied on because they were just based on assumption.

She however said final results will only made once the electoral body receives and verifies all the results and has urged some political parties against premature celebrations and to wait for the official declaration of a presidential winner.

The election was marred by heavy rains which resulted in some polling station failing to vote because of lack of materials.

Fifty-one polling stations failed to vote on Tuesday and only voted on Wednesday. The polling stations have 21,337 registered voters while the overall number of registered voters stands at 5.1 million.

Meanwhile, the commission has expressed concern at the turnout of voters during the presidential election.

According to Mambilima, the turnout in the 13 constituencies where results have been officially announced stood at 33.7 percent, adding that the situation was same in all the other constituencies.

"We don't know whether it is because of the weather. Surprisingly, even in other areas where it did not rain had poor turnouts," she said.

Eleven candidates participated in the presidential election to choose the southern African nation's sixth president since getting independence from Britain in 1964. Endi