By Hopewell Chin’ono
The stopping of the counting of election results is a terrible thing in a democracy, especially when it happens under an incumbent government, as is now happening in Zambia.
It reminds me of something from when I was growing up in the township of Glen Norah. If you owned the football and your team was losing, you could simply stop the game, take your ball and go home. That is precisely the kind of impression that the Zambian authorities must avoid creating.
The Zambian authorities must provide clear and compelling evidence to justify stopping the counting and announcement of election results across the entire country. If there was violence in specific areas, they could have suspended counting in those affected areas while allowing it to continue elsewhere. Why stop counting in Lusaka, where there is no violence, if the violence, for instance, is happening on the Copperbelt? It does not make sense unless there is evidence showing that the security threat is genuinely nationwide.
Before this election, there were already suggestions that, because of President Hakainde Hichilema’s loss of popularity, he was going to rig the election. Those were allegations that were not backed by facts. But this decision risks allowing people to take that skeleton and put meat on its bones. Much of that meat will come from the fact that, under Hichilema’s government, the Electoral Commission has stopped the counting and announcement of election results nationwide.
That is not a good thing for democracy, and it inevitably creates suspicion about what is happening during the period when counting has been suspended. Elections require transparency, and once counting has started, every unnecessary interruption creates room for mistrust, speculation and allegations of manipulation.
I know that President Hichilema’s sycophants will defend this decision regardless of how damaging it looks. But democracy should not be defended according to which political party is in power. If we would condemn an opposition government for stopping the counting of votes while it was losing seats, then we should apply exactly the same standard to Hichilema’s government.
When an incumbent government presides over an election in which the counting and announcement of results are suddenly stopped nationwide, particularly while senior members of that government are losing seats, it raises serious questions. The Electoral Commission must therefore explain, with evidence, why a nationwide suspension was necessary rather than a targeted suspension in the areas affected by violence.
Zambians deserve to see their votes counted transparently and the results announced without unnecessary interruption. Democracy cannot operate like the football games of our childhood, where the person who owned the ball could simply end the match when his team was losing.
It does not help that the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission of Zambia is President Hichilema’s former personal lawyer.