Zambians voted on Thursday in a national election that will test whether President Hakainde Hichilema’s \u200ceconomic gains since a pandemic-era debt crisis are enough to win him a second term.<\/p>\n
Analysts say Hichilema is favoured to win due to the advantages of incumbency and a fractured opposition, although first-time presidential candidate Brian Mundubile has drawn large crowds in some areas.<\/p>\n
Hichilema took office \u200bin 2021 and steered Zambia through a debt restructuring and recovery after it defaulted on its sovereign debt \u200bin 2020.<\/p>\n
The southern African country is the continent’s second-largest copper producer after Democratic Republic of \u2060Congo and is of strategic interest for its critical minerals, with China already a major investor in the sector \u200band the United States\u00a0seeking to expand its access.<\/p>\n
Earlier this year\u00a0negotiations\u00a0over U.S. health funding of up to $2 billion stalled after \u200bZambia said Washington wanted to tie the money to mining deals.<\/p>\n
COST OF LIVING MAJOR ISSUES FOR VOTERS<\/strong><\/p>\n The country of 22 million people is voting in presidential, parliamentary and local government elections simultaneously. Polls will close at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT), with results expected on Monday.<\/p>\n “I voted for \u200bHH because he cares about us,” said James Phiri, a 29-year-old student at the University of Zambia, using a \u200bcommon nickname for the president.<\/p>\n “Things are better after he re-introduced meal allowances,” said Phiri. Hichilema fulfilled a campaign promise by restoring allowances \u200cfor university \u2060students which were cancelled by the previous administration.<\/p>\n Many Zambians say they are struggling with the cost of living, which analysts see as Hichilema’s main weakness in the poll, despite economic indicators having improved.<\/p>\n The International Monetary Fund projects Zambia’s economy as growing 4.3% this year from 3.8% last year, foreign investment\u00a0has picked up, and inflation is at its lowest level in \u200byears.<\/p>\n But whether those gains have \u200breached ordinary Zambians is a \u2060point of contention.<\/p>\n “I have just come from firing someone. We are tired of stories about economic progress,” said Samuel Chitendwe, a 47-year-old welder and father of four who said \u200bhe voted for Mundubile.<\/p>\n SOME CONCERNS OVER FAIRNESS OF VOTE<\/strong><\/p>\n The lead-up to the vote has been \u200bmarred by some \u2060allegations of political repression, although the government denies this.<\/p>\n Zambia is rated as “partly free” by U.S. non-profit group Freedom House, which says that although there are regular multi-party elections, opposition parties face “onerous legal and practical obstacles to fair competition”.<\/p>\n A presidential candidate must \u2060receive more \u200bthan 50% of votes cast in order to win in the first \u200bround, or face a run-off between the top two contenders.<\/p>\n If the presidential vote goes to a second round the run-off must be held within 37 \u200bdays of the first poll.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Zambians voted on Thursday in a national election that will test whether President Hakainde Hichilema’s \u200ceconomic gains since a pandemic-era debt crisis are enough to win him a second term. Analysts say Hichilema is favoured to win due to the advantages of incumbency and a fractured opposition, although first-time presidential candidate Brian Mundubile has drawn […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":28,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,30],"tags":[5399,1163,394],"class_list":["post-21758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-freedom-house","tag-international-monetary-fund-imf","tag-zambia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21758","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21758"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21758\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21760,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21758\/revisions\/21760"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}