Zambia’s president was declared the winner with 60% of the vote, but the numbers don’t add up, and now the opposition leader is in hiding.
Rob Rose and Zukile Majova are joined by Patrick Smith from Africa Confidential for episode 21 of Sharp Sharp, the weekly podcast on South African politics, money and power from the Financial Mail and Scrolla.Africa.
Zambia’s Electoral Commission declared president Hakainde Hichilema the winner with 60% of the vote, against 39% for opposition challenger Brian Mundabili. But turnout for the presidential vote came in far higher than turnout for the parliamentary vote on the same ballot papers, a gap that has raised serious suspicion. Mundabili is now in hiding after armed men raided his house, and a bishop who led an opposition aligned party has been jailed.
Patrick explains why the regional body meant to hold governments accountable, SADC, has stayed almost silent on it, and what that silence says about the widening gap between ordinary people and those who govern them across the region.
Closer to home, Rob and Zuks turn to South Africa’s own Zama Zama crisis, the illegal mining economy built around thousands of disused mine shafts, and why the communities living off it are often the ones fighting hardest to keep it running.
The episode closes on a brewing scandal for the DA. Finance spokesperson Mark Burke is accused of moving R4-billion offshore in breach of exchange controls, and Zuks and Rob ask what it could mean for Helen Zille’s campaign to become mayor of Johannesburg, a campaign built almost entirely on the promise of clean governance.
