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Zambia: It’s Lungu vs Hichilema in close presidential race
Voters braved the rain in many parts of the landlocked country to join snaking queues outside polling booths.
“I am behind Edgar Lungu. He is a humble man. He is one of us,” street trader Elvis Nyambe told reporters as he waited to vote in Lusaka’s Chawama township.
Joyce Mainza, a 36-year-old mother of four, said she voted for Hichilema because he had laid out clear policy plans.
“We need someone who will get us out of poverty.”
With another election due late next year when Sata’s term would have ended, whoever wins will have little time to turn around a stuttering economy.
Zambia has averaged 6-7 percent growth as the mining sector boomed but growth slowed to 5.5 percent last year, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) says, and could ease further with the price of copper at a 6-year low this month.
A row between international mining companies and the government over royalty increases and US$800 million in unpaid taxes also threatens to deter investment.
Source: Reuters
