They say it is not over until it is over. 2016 General election will be very tight between the Patriotic Front (PF) and the United Party for National Development (UPND) with the coming in of the 50% + 1.
Basically the PF voted in the 51%+1 with the hope that it would help them to win the 2016 elections, Alas, they still have to run otherwise, it will work against them.
Both Presidential candidates of the two parties President Edgar Lungu of PF (incumbent) and President Hakainde Hichilema of the opposition UPND have been declaring themselves as winners of next year’s elections before time.
The declaration of victory by these political parties is based on various socio-economic and political assumptions.
The first assumption is based on the regional voting whereby political parties have strongholds from which they get a lot of votes. If that is taken into consideration and all the votes of a particular area are given to the favorite party (check the picture), PF stands a high chance of winning with about 2,067, 796 votes over UPND based on the current updated voter register.
However, this is highly unlikely because it is clear that some provinces are shared by both parties, for example Lusaka, Copperbelt, Central and North-western province.
For argument sake if the votes in the four provinces are split into 50% each to the two parties, and the other strongholds (provinces) given to the respective party of choice, the UPND would win by about 545,488 votes over PF. (See the picture)
The other assumption can be made based on 2015 election results taking each candidate’s results in percentage against the other from the provinces. The assumption is that Edgar Lungu would win with about 732,421 votes above Hakainde Hichilema.
These assumptions are simply something that one can base on to project the possible outcome of 2016 elections other than just being emotive.
Taking the last election results can be more helpful because it is based on tested facts. However, both parties should ask some strategic questions so that they see how they can change those results based on various current situations.
One of the critical strategic question that both parties should be asking themselves is that, “why would a voter who voted in the last election vote differently in 2016?” Do we expect many voters who voted for HH changing to vote for ECL or vice versa in 2016? If so why would they do that, or they are more determined to vote for HH or ECL again.
The other issue that should be looked at is the current economic challenges, how have the two parties responded to the issues affecting the people to convince them to vote for them (ECL or HH)?
In the last election ECL got 63% over HH who got 37% in Lusaka, what is likely to be the results in 2016? The same question can be asked on all the other provinces especially along the rail.
There are also a lot of undecided voters who did not turn up to vote in the last election. At the sametime there are new voters, especially the youths, who are they likely to vote for and for what?
This is the kind of thinking that is expected from all parties other than emotionally declaring oneself winner. Some political cadre like to quote that, the people are saying this…, which people? You can’t quote 3 or 4 people drinking with you as the will of the people, not even a crowd at a UPND rally or at the Prayer meeting in Showgrounds should give you false hopes.
The PF tends to be over confident based on the fact that in the last elections, they campaigned only for 30 days but won the elections, forgetting they were the party in Government even if Guy Scott came in late.
It must also be noted that ECL has been tested so people will judge him on what they have seen which might be positive and negative.
The many failures of HH in the elections can be both positive or negative, because others will continue to renounce him while others might just vote for him to give him chance out of frustrations.
Confidence of winning elections should not be based on your emotions or how many people surround you because they want jobs or money now, or when you win. It should be based on deliverables which impact on the lives of people.
Therefore all political parties should to get back to the drawing board before it is too late. The race is still one, stop kidding yourselves that you have won.
By Chilufya Tayali
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