{"id":25826,"date":"2021-08-15T11:02:14","date_gmt":"2021-08-15T08:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/?p=25826"},"modified":"2021-08-15T11:02:16","modified_gmt":"2021-08-15T08:02:16","slug":"zambia-election-president-claims-vote-was-not-free-and-fair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/15\/zambia-election-president-claims-vote-was-not-free-and-fair\/","title":{"rendered":"Zambia election: President claims vote was not free and fair"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Zambia&#8217;s incumbent president has described Thursday&#8217;s elections as &#8220;not free and fair&#8221;.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Early results show President Edgar Lungu trailing his main opponent, businessman Hakainde &#8220;HH&#8221; Hichilema.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The president said election officials from his party Patriotic Front had been chased from polling stations, leaving votes unprotected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In response, Mr Hichilema said the statement was the &#8220;desperate final act of an outgoing administration&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mr Lungu, who is seeking a second term, also said that violence in provinces where he lost votes had rendered &#8220;the whole exercise a nullity&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The party, he added, was considering its next course of action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Zambia&#8217;s electoral commission is yet to respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Violence had broken out in Southern province, North Western province and Western Province, the president&#8217;s statement said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Mr Lungu referenced the killing of a Patriotic Front chairman in North Western province and of another young party activist in clashes earlier this month. When the deaths occurred, the president brought in army reinforcements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">European Union election observers said in a preliminary report that the vote was &#8220;marred by unequal campaign restrictions, restrictions on freedoms of assembly and movement, and abuse of incumbency&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Social media and internet access was also shut down on Thursday. On Friday the High Court in Lusaka ruled that access to the internet should be fully restored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The results of the election were initially expected on Friday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">However, the announcement was halted after some party election officials criticised the commission for trying to declare results that hadn&#8217;t yet been verified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A candidate can dispute an election by filing a petition in the country&#8217;s Constitutional Court. This stops the winning candidate from exercising executive powers until the petition is heard in court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Zambia&#8217;s incumbent president has described Thursday&#8217;s elections as &#8220;not free and fair&#8221;. Early results show President Edgar Lungu trailing his main opponent, businessman Hakainde &#8220;HH&#8221; Hichilema. The president said election officials from his party Patriotic Front had been chased from polling stations, leaving votes unprotected. In response, Mr Hichilema said the statement was the &#8220;desperate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27983,"featured_media":25828,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_paywall_metabox":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[31],"class_list":["post-25826","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27983"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25826"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25826\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25829,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25826\/revisions\/25829"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ugmirror.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}