EUROPEAN UNION ELECTION OBSERVATION MISSION
Plot 3/110a Musonda Ngosa Road
Lusaka
Telephone: +260 1 223935/6, 223940; Fax: +260 1 223941
E-mail: eueu@coppernet.zm
Website: www.eueu-Zambia.org
Chief Observer: Michael Meadowcroft

FINAL STATEMENT ON THE ZAMBIAN ELECTIONS 2001

1       Background

On 4th September 2001 the Delegation of the European Commission in Zambia received a formal invitation from the Zambian Ministry of Foreign Affairs to observe the 2001 elections:
 

It is the wish of the Government of the Republic of Zambia that monitors and observers from the European Union are present in Zambia in order to share its democratic electoral process and to give their considered and professional opinion on the election.
 

The European Union responded to this invitation by sending sixteen Long Term Observers (LTOs) and eighty-six Short Term Observers (STOs) who arrived in Zambia on 27 November and 22 December respectively. Fourteen of the fifteen EU Member States were represented. LTOs and STOs were deployed in all nine provinces and visited 638 polling stations.
 

2       Interim Statements

Two Interim Statements have already been issued. The first, on 17 December 2001, dealt critically with the Voter Registration process, and the second, on 31 December 2001, commented on the electoral process up to the partial declaration of Presidential and Parliamentary figures as of that date. The second Interim Statement drew detailed attention to the failure of the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) to enforce a level playing field. In a Presidential race as close as that in this election, and with a National Assembly so evenly divided, such abuses can be regarded as influential on the results. Both statements, plus a great deal of other material, can be found on the EU Electoral Unit’s website: www.eueu-Zambia.org
 

3       Media Monitoring

Sections 8, 9 and 10 of the electoral Code of Conduct, enshrined in the law as the Electoral (Conduct) Regulations 1996, contain forthright instructions as to the duties of the media during ‘the period of campaigning’ - defined as following immediately on the nomination of candidates, in this case 2 December 2001. The EU Electoral Unit (EUEU) commissioned Afronet, operating under the title of “Coalition 2001", to undertake media monitoring. To assist Coalition 2001 to cover all the relevant media, and to produce timely reports to acknowledged international standards, the EUEU provided additional resources to Afronet, including two visits to Lusaka from Ms Gillian McCormack, a media expert with the European Institute for the Media.


Monitoring reports were issued weekly during the election campaign, the third of which consolidates the monitoring into a single report covering the period 2-26 December 2001. This report is also available on the EUEU website. It sets out in detail the significant bias of the state owned media - television, radio and press - towards the MMD.
 
4       The continuing electoral process
The ECZ’s preparations for the conduct of polling day, of the count and of the tabulation proved wholly inadequate for the logistical requirements in the field. When our second Interim Statement was issued, on 31 December last, voting was still going on in a handful of polling stations - four days after the designated polling day. Such protracted polling is unfair to voters and probably led to a reduced level of voting in the delayed polling districts. It also means that results are being announced whilst voting is still going on, leading to allegations of illegitimate influence on such voters.
The lack of adequate numbers of lines for voters in larger polling stations meant inordinate delays in many places, causing some voters to have to leave the queues. Research into the effects of this in Lusaka and in Livingstone suggests that, in general, the larger the polling station the lower the turnout. We believe that this affected the voting differentially to the benefit of the ruling party. In Lusaka, for instance, all the polling stations which lacked ballot boxes until late on polling day, and which had long queues, were amongst those which voted heavily for opposition parties.
As the results began to be declared it became clear that the contest between Mr Mwanawasa (MMD) and Mr Mazoka (UPND) was going to be extremely close - on average less than 250 votes per constituency. Despite this, and despite the increasing evidence of the unreliability of some of the figures officially announced, the ECZ ignored all requests for the widespread concerns about the voting figures to be addressed before announcing a result. Instead it allowed itself to be pushed into announcing a winner to enable the Government’s timetable for the inauguration on 2 January 2002 to be adhered to, despite the fact that two constituencies had not even reported. For an electoral commission to earn respect for its competence and its independence it must withstand government pressures and must be seen to be taking every precaution possible to guarantee the accuracy of its published figures. This the ECZ conspicuously failed to do.
Since then the ECZ has published a number of minor revisions of the published results but has not explained the nature of the errors leading to these revisions. Nor has it ever addressed the more significant concerns about the figures, some of which are detailed below.

 

An additional stage in the electoral process is the verification of ballot paper account forms. The EU Election Observation Mission (EU EOM) retained two observers to observe the process in the Copperbelt and Northern provinces. In each case the verification, although technically only a re-check rather than a recount of votes, uncovered a series of errors and omissions in the reported results. As a consequence of the errors discovered in the verification process, the Returning Officer for Ndola Central has re-declared both the Presidential and Parliamentary results for that constituency, (copies attached). The ECZ has not, as yet, corrected its published figures.
 

Following a 1996 amendment to the electoral law, any petitions challenging the Presidential election have to be submitted to the Supreme Court within fourteen days of the President being sworn in. Despite the very short notice for such a significant aspect of the electoral process, we note that three candidates and parties - Anderson Mazoka, UPND, Lt Gen Christon Tembo, FDD, and Brig Gen Godfrey Myanda, HP - have filed petitions. We further note that many of the stated grounds for petitioning the result reflect the concerns of the EU EOM.

Forty petitions against the parliamentary results have also been lodged.

 

5       The official results

On 16 January 2002 the ECZ published what appear to be the final official results for Parliamentary and Presidential elections. No local election figures have yet been issued by the ECZ. We are aware that a number of local elections were unable to take place at all for want of ballot papers. By mid-January the ECZ was still missing 244 ward results.
 

These published results confirm our view that, quite apart from the errors discovered in the verification process, they cannot be relied upon as an accurate record of the voting on 27-31 December 2001. There are two general and highly significant anomalies.
 

First, twenty-two constituencies show a difference of 900 votes or more between the turnout for the Presidential and Parliamentary elections. (A list of these is attached). The number of votes involved in these seats alone is almost 50,000, whereas the published majority for Mr Mwanawasa is 34,000. It is difficult to see how an identical electorate, at the same polling station, at the same moment, could produce such discrepancies. The ECZ has not yet explained this phenomenon, nor indicated that it has investigated, nor intends to investigate the matter.
 

Second, in 83 of the 150 constituencies no invalid ballots whatsoever are shown for either the Presidential or Parliamentary election in the constituencies, or for both. (A list is attached). This is simplynot credible. It is of particular concern that 55 constituencies show invalid ballots for the Parliamentary election but not for the Presidential. An official form (GEN 10) has to be completed for each result balancing the figures of ballots issued against their use. We assume that the ECZ has a copy of this form for each constituency which will enable it to say whether or not the figures for ballots issued have been ‘balanced’ in these 83 cases without any invalid papers. The question then remains as to what happened to any invalid ballot papers. We note, for instance, that in the case of the Ndola Central constituency, the ECZ results for which show no invalid ballot papers for either Presidential or Parliamentary elections, the Returning Officer’s revised figures, following the verification exercise, show 908 and 643 for the two elections respectively. We note that where they are shown, invalid ballots average approximately 2% of the total vote.
 


Amongst a number of individual results that, prima facie, warrant investigation, one vivid example is Constituency 52, Nyimba. The official result for the Parliamentary election shows votes for only three of the ten candidates, whereas the Presidential figures show votes for all eleven candidates. 2,145 more votes are shown as being cast in the Presidential election, and such a discrepancy leads us to believe that the difference in turnout is a result of the votes for seven parliamentary candidates having been omitted. 
 

We cannot avoid the conclusion that official published results which contain such substantial unexplained anomalies are unsafe.
There have been a number of calls, including from the EU EOM, for the ECZ to publish the voting figures from the polling stations. These figures are in the public domain and, to avoid possible errors from unofficial recording and transmission of them, it would be valuable for the purposes of verifying the accuracy of the tabulation for the ECZ to make them available officially. Unfortunately this they have so far refused to do.

 

6       Conclusions
 

As international observers we have no mandate for entering into Zambia’s internal political debates and it is the Zambian people who are the ultimate judges of the legitimacy of the electoral process. Our conclusions below, as our formal observation mission comes to an end, are part of our commitment to the enhancement of democratic values. 
 

·     we salute the enthusiasm, commitment and fortitude of the Zambian voters who voted in large numbers, often in the face of considerable difficulties.
 

·     taking its performance into account in relation to the low - 55% - rate of voter registration, its failure to enforce its Code of Conduct, its maladministration of polling day, and its failure to address serious concerns relating to the accuracy of the announced results, we conclude that the Electoral Commission of Zambia has failed to fulfil its mandate on behalf of the electors of Zambia.
 

·     in view of the administrative failures on polling day, the serious flaws in the counting and tabulation procedures, together with the close outcome of the elections, we are not confident that the declared results represent the wishes of the Zambian electors on polling day.
 

·     we strongly recommend that the Electoral Commission publishes the voting figures from each polling station as an important contribution to transparency.
 

·     we hope that the Courts will deal speedily with the election petitions.


 
 

5th February 2002

Ref: Final Statement-1b.wpd