AS the extended voter registration exercise came to an end yesterday, the Electoral Commission of Zambia says there has been a good turnout of potential voters, and they are likely to exceed their 1.7 million target.
In an interview yesterday, ECZ director Priscilla Isaac said the voter registration exercise will however, continue at civic centres across the country.
Ms Isaac said the commission, will open mobile voter registration for two weeks in March next year, to allow those who have missed the just-ended exercise to register.
“We will only be able to know the percentage of our target after we receive statistics from our various centres. We are confident, because last time we received statistics from registration centres, we were at 83 percent,” she said.
Mrs Isaac said the voter verification exercise will be conducted in July next year.
And Lusaka district voter education coordinator Brendah Katongola described the exercise as excellent. Ms Katongola said she was confident that Lusaka has exceeded its target considering the overwhelming response.
“We managed to capture a lot of people who missed the initial exercise,” she said.
Information that was released by the commission last week indicated that they had recorded 1,424,918 new registrations countrywide as at December 3 this year.
Public relations officer Raphael Phiri said the commission had further recorded 1,350,012 people updating their voters’ cards, while 33,120 have been recorded as notifications of deceased voters.
The number of voter applications processed countrywide therefore stood at 2,808,050, with Southern Province recording the highest at 456,867 followed by Lusaka with 446,902 while Muchinga recorded the lowest at 159,563.
Copperbelt Province recorded 334,066 while Eastern Province has 297,455 with Central recording 283,625. Others are Luapula with 196,769, Northern with 231,580 with North-Western recording 160,280 while Western has 240, 943.
When I look at these number and make a thorough analysis, HH is surely winning 2016. Most of the PF strongholds will be accompanied by voter apathy as they are disillusioned and disappointed with the economic situation, whereas in UPND strongholds voters will be encouraged to vote for their president HH to remove PF from power. This is just my own simple analysis. Southern, Central, Western, North Western are for HH with Copperbelt & Lusaka being shared btn HH and EL.
The only problem is rigging plus 50+1 clause
Remember there are reports of double and under age registration in UPND strongholds and so when the clean up verification exercise is do in March 2016, all pointers will be in favour of the PF.
Additionally 50%+1 is not for rhetoric but serious development so the opposition must forget winning 2016 elections
God chooses,appoints and changes kings as he wishes.all these arguments of who will win or lose,its only the Almighty who has an answer.When God will touch people’s hearts,in the ballot box,the issue of tribalism will end.A northerner or easterner will vote for HH a tonga.A southerner,westerner,northwesterner will vote for EL.anything is possi
Anything is possible with who(God)has lived forever.
Those who are talking about under age registration in Southern province,are you saying the ECZ officers are so dull not to tell someone is an under age?