WHY THE PF LEADERSHIP IS WORRIED ABOUT NORTHERN, MUCHINGA AND LUAPULA
PF cadres will always celebrate a win, but they don’t have the brains to analyze numbers and trends.
Recent By Elections in the northern part of the country have consistently shown that the PF has lost significant ground there.
In 2016, PF consistently got above 80%, on average about 85% of the vote in Luapula and Northern.
This has changed, in Chilubi for example PF got 83% of the vote in 2016, but in 2020 in two by elections the PF got 70% of the vote, while UPND doubled their vote in Chilubi from 9% in 2016 to 18% in 2020. The PF has lost 13% support in Chilubi.
Any statistician can tell you whose gaining and whose losing.
In 2017 in Chifunabuli NDC managed 18% reducing the PF to 75% down from the 90% they had in 2016.
Not forgetting what happened in Lupososhi recently.
How about Lukashya where UPND scored 25%?
These trends are not going well for the PF in their ‘strongholds’. There’s a clear 15% movement which actually opens a 30% movement because a gain on one side results in a loss on the other side.
So the PF can still win parliamentary and local government by elections in the northern circuit but their margins are shrinking rapidly.
Given the fact that ECL won 2016 by 2%, what does a 15% loss in support in his strongholds do to him?
We haven’t even got to Lusaka and the Copperbelt yet where the effects of the bad economy are being felt the most, even though Roan was a dyonko for them, where they were reduced from 70% in 2016 to just 38% in 2018. -NDC