ECZ Confirms Voters’ Roll; Still 2 Million Names Short
The Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) has officially certified the voters’ roll for the upcoming general election in August. The official register of voters stands at 7,023,499 – some 2 million short of the ECZ’s stated target of 9 million registered voters.
Announcing the official register in Lusaka, Chief Electoral Officer Patrick Nshindano admitted that the voter verification process had also been disappointing.
He said that only 42.3% of registered voters had been able to verify their details. Of these, 57% verified their details physically, while 43% did so online.
The new register of voters was compiled last year in just 38 days, after the ECZ decided to scrap the old register for the 2016 elections.
The registration process itself was dogged by long wait times and technical problems, including rolling blackouts. A survey by Open Zambia found that over 80% of voters struggled to register their details in the allotted time.
This has sparked outrage from several civil society groups. In March, pro-democracy NGO the SADC Good Governance and Elections Monitoring Group (SGGEM) wrote an open letter to the ECZ, calling for the voter registration exercise to be re-opened, to allow more eligible voters to register.
Failing this, SSGGEM recommended that the new voters’ roll be merged with that of the 2016 elections, in order to ensure those who were eligible to vote last time around remain registered.
More concerningly, experts have warned that the current voters’ roll is biased in favour of the Patriotic Front, with the number of registered voters increasing in government safe seats while simultaneously falling in areas likely to vote for the opposition.
In March, University of Zambia lecturer Sishuwa Sishuwa warned that the new register was a “scam” after observing that the number of registered voters in President Lungu’s home seat of Eastern Province rose by over 120,000, while in the UPND stronghold of Western Province, the number of voters fell by more than 51,000.
This prompted the UPND alliance to write to the African Union and the Southern Africa Development Community, calling for an independent audit into the voters’ roll in order to ensure free and fair elections.
The ECZ has now confirmed Dr Sishuwa’s analysis, revealing that registration was highest in Lusaka Province – where 17.71% of the population are registered to vote – while the opposition-favouring North Western Province had the lowest number of registered voters, with just 5.51%.
This will massively hamper the ability for Zambia to hold free and fair elections this summer, if only 5% of voters are able to take part in some provinces. It also raises more questions about the independence of the ECZ, as it freely admits to neglecting rural provinces, which are unlikely to vote for the government.