Please leave the Tongas alone. They are innocent
By Sishuwa Sishuwa
The election results from Southern Province – very much like those from Northwestern and Western provinces – are totally made up, as Tongas mostly stayed away from voting this time around.
However, I can see how, by cooking the results on a huge scale as they have done (they have inflated the numbers), the governing United Party for No Democracy (UPND) are worsening other ethnic groups’ attitudes towards the Tongas even for what many of the voters in Southern Province have not done. Not this time. By taking the fake results being announced by Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) as points of discussion, you are legitimising the manufactured numbers as authentic when they are not.
Please do not criticise Tongas for what they have not done. It would be stupid for anyone to analyse the results of the presidential election based on the figures announced by the ECZ. This is because they are fake. The original Gen 20 election forms show low voter turnout across much of Southern Province, as was the case in Northwestern province.
If the discussion is about why voters, say, in Southern Province stayed away from voting in this election, we can reasonably speculate, but that discussion must be based on the original numbers, not the manufactured ones being read by ECZ. I can think of two possible reasons that explain why Tongas may have stayed away from voting this time around. One is disappointment with Hichilema’s policy failures. Until 2021, Tongas voted for Hichilema on the understanding that he would deliver tangible improvements in their lives or address the problems that are peculiar to them.
Tell me, what is new in Choma for the last 5 years which Hichilema can point to? Most Tongas are farmers, and I am personally grateful to them for working hard, but look at the price of fertiliser…look at the payments for the maize they supply! The hospitals in Southern Province, like elsewhere, do not have drugs. They are also run down. There is even grass growing on top of the roof at Choma hospital. I can go on. The point is that Tongas gave Hichilema all the votes in 2021 and before, but he took that for granted. Hichilema seems to have been of the view that the Tongas will aways vote for him simply because he comes from there. Some may have decided to stay away this time in protest, or to teach him a lesson.
It did not help that the leading opposition candidate did not even go to Southern Province – due to heightened risk of violence – to explain why the disenchanted should vote for him or acknowledge that the former ruling party, to which he belonged, had violent cadres and possibly apologise for the cadreism problem with a pledge that it will never happen again. Having been disappointed by Hichilema and denied the opportunity to hear what the alternative had in store for them, many may have opted to stay away.
The other possible reason for the apathy is the internal party divisions that arose from the messy adoption process in the ruling party, especially for election to the National Assembly. Hichilema’s decision to impose unpopular candidates in many constituencies and his insistence that the voters should reject independent candidates could have displeased the faithful, which made them stay away, as opposed to appearing at the ballot to vote for one of them rather than a suit, as was the case before.
It is easy to campaign against opponents from outside the ethnic group or the province, not candidates who live in the same communities or hail from the same ethnic group. Telling voters to reject such candidates festers divisions within a community that was previously united or voted as a unity for the same party.
I am saying we can have discussion based on the original results from Southern and other provinces before the Gen 20 forms were destroyed (I have written in detail about how this was done) and replaced with the ones bearing the fake results being announced by the ECZ.
What I find uncomfortable is to bash voters in Southern Province over fake results that were produced by a person who, rejected by voters, deleted the original results and created his own
https://dailyrevelationzambia.com/please-leave-the-tongas-alone-they-are-innocent/