A very warm welcome, fellow citizens, to Transparency International Zambia (TI-Z)’s seventh
update from our 2021 elections project. We are now just under two months away from casting
our votes in this year’s general elections, and the stakes appear to be getting higher with each
passing day. Through these updates, we will continue to share the observations we are making
about different aspects of the electoral process, and we thank you for the useful feedback we
have been receiving about the issues we have been raising each week.
For this week, we will focus on the increasing electoral violence in the campaigns, and the
inspection of government development projects as a campaign strategy. Lastly, we will share
our preliminary findings on how much political parties are spending on billboard advertising in
Lusaka.
- Increasing electoral violence
TI-Z has in the past week noted an unfortunate and increasingly worrying escalation of
incidences of electoral violence, perpetrated by supporters of both the United Party for National
Development (UPND) and Patriotic Front (PF), the two biggest political parties in Zambia. We
strongly condemn the violence which occurred in Namwala District of Southern Province, where
UPND supporters were reported to have descended on PF supporters with stones and insults.
The recent clash of UPND and PF supporters during a road show in Mandevu also leaves much
to be desired, as does the disheartening scenes of violence that were witnessed over the
weekend in Mpulungu, including the burning of a motor vehicle. In light of this, we challenge the
presidential candidates of the UPND and PF, who also happen to be the presidents of their
respective parties, to issue a strong rebuke to their supporters and appeal for peace and
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coexistence during this campaign period. It has always been our belief that President Edgar
Lungu and Mr. Hakainde Hichilema should take more responsibility for the violence perpetuated
by their supporters instead of only complaining when their supporters fall victim to the same. It is
also hypocritical to only issue statements against electoral violence when supporters from
another political party have been noted as initiators. Rather than point accusing fingers at each
other as the default response, we challenge the two to take a firmer stance against the violence
being perpetrated by their own supporters.
Having said this, TI-Z finds it extremely regrettable that the opportunity to address the drivers of
violence has not been utilized in the past. Zambians will recall that in 2016, the PF government
set up a Commission of Inquiry on Voting Patterns and Electoral Violence after the general
elections that year. The Commission of Inquiry collected vital information and submitted a report
to President Lungu at a ceremony at State House. However, the Government did not bother to
prepare a white paper and the President casually asked Government Printers to make this
report available to the public. To our knowledge, very little action was taken on the 33
recommendations made by the Commission, and we are convinced that the violence that
threatens to besiege our electoral process this year, is largely a result of government’s failure to
take action on the findings of that Commission of Inquiry. We reiterate our call for the presidents
of the PF and UPND to take responsibility and demonstrate statesmanship in putting an end to
this violence, which has the potential to undermine the 12th August elections in ways that will be
inimical to our democratic aspirations as a country. - Campaigning through the inspection of development projects
TI-Z has noted with growing concern the escalation of campaign activities, some of which tend
to be near-rallies, being held by President Lungu, the PF presidential candidate, in the name of
inspecting developmental projects across the country. This is grossly unfair given that the 15
other presidential candidates do not have the privilege of going round the country using public
resources to campaign under any pretext. This is also given the fact that the ban on campaign
rallies is still in effect, with the Zambia Police also warning of the possibility of banning road
shows, further potentially limiting the opportunities for opposition political parties to engage with
their supporters. TI-Z wishes to advise the President to clearly distinguish between official
government duties and political campaigns and to subject himself to the same regulations which
are applicable to other presidential candidates with regard to COVID-19 guidelines. We do not
see any logical reason why government duties such as inspection of projects should be turned
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into de facto campaign rallies for the political expediency of the party in government and of the
president’s campaign in particular. We reiterate the call we made two weeks ago that the
President should not lose sight of the fact that he is also a candidate in the coming elections,
and he should therefore refrain from using the perks of the presidency to give himself an unfair
advantage over other candidates. In the same vein, we have noted that Vice President Mrs.
Inonge Wina has continued to facilitate the abuse of state resources by allowing the PF running
mate, Prof Nkandu Luo, to accompany her on official trips that are in effect campaign rallies. We
challenge the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) to step in and take action over this matter,
which is undermining the integrity of this year’s electoral process by making the playing field
uneven. Zambians will recall that a few weeks ago, the Vice President hosted the Special
Representative of the United Nations Secretary General to the African Union, and assured her
that there would be a level playing field for all political players to participate in this this year’s
general elections with confidence. TI-Z finds it unfortunate that both President Lungu and Mrs.
Wina are failing to live up to that commitment, by disguising campaign rallies as inspection of
development projects, and allowing the PF running mate to abuse state resources, respectively. - Preliminary findings on Billboard advertising in Lusaka
As part of our long-term monitoring of the electoral process, including the campaign activities of
political parties, TI-Z has been using proxy indicators to estimate the level of campaign
spending towards the 2021 general elections by political parties. This monitoring of the cost of
campaign activities is meant to give Zambians a rough estimate of how much political parties
are spending on trying to convince the electorate to vote for them, and will ultimately inform our
ongoing advocacy on the pertinent issue of political party financing in Zambia. To kick off this
aspect of our 2021 elections project, we focused on four political parties namely the PF, the
UPND, the Socialist Party and the Democratic Party, and how much these spent on billboard
advertisements. To get the estimates, we collected information about the cost of advertising on
billboards from different advertising agencies, and then went round to identify as many as we
could of the four parties’ billboards in Lusaka. It is now our pleasure to present our preliminary
estimations of what these parties spent towards billboard advertisement within the city of
Lusaka only. Our data collection revealed that for the month of May 2021 only, the PF had at
least 208 billboards, the Socialist party had at least 70, the UPND at least 24 and the
Democratic Party at least 4 billboards across the city of Lusaka. Based on this quantity survey
and pricing information obtained from advertising agencies for various sizes of billboards, it has
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been estimated that the PF spent about K2.9 million on billboard advertisement for the month of
May only, followed by the Socialist party which spent about K864,000. The UPND spent around
K648,000 while the Democratic Party spent about K108,000. Again, we reiterate that this is only
for the month of May, and focusing only on Lusaka. We will continue to do this analysis for other
major towns in Zambia, as well as for other campaign activities that the different political parties
are involved in. In addition to it informing our advocacy interventions on the issue of political
party financing, we are convinced that information about how much money political parties are
spending on their campaigns is something that will be appreciated by citizens of Zambia. We
will be releasing this information based on our analysis in our subsequent weekly updates.
Thank you for making time to watch our update for this week, and we invite you to join us again
next week at the same time. May God bless our beloved Zambia.
