31 October 2008
A low turn out, far from the crowds that attended the various pre-election campaign rallies held by political parties, characterised yesterday's voting in most polling stations across the country.
A Times survey in major towns and provincial centres showed that the turn out was below expectation and election monitors and officials expressed disappointment that the turn out did not match the enthusiasm exhibited during the campaign period.
The Foundation for Democratic Process (FODEP) and Southern African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (Saccord) expressed concern at the low turn out.
A check at some polling stations in Lusaka showed that voters were trickling in and officials were hoping that more people would vote late in the day.
At Kasamba Basic School's Cambridge polling station in Matero Constituency, out of the registered 621 voters, only 250 had cast their votes by late afternoon.
Presiding officer, Ishmael Jere said the voter turn out was low at the polling centre that opened at 06:00 hours.
At George Basic School's Humanism polling centre in Lusaka's George Township, presiding officer John Muneku was pleased with the turn out of voters and hoped to capture more before the close of the voting exercise.
Out of 577 registered voters, the polling centre had managed to have a voter turn out of 285 by Press time.
Paul Njovu, the presiding officer at Woodlands Basic School polling station, said more than 400 voters had cast their votes out of the registered 986.
At the same centre, the presiding officer for Woodlands West, Joseph Chowa described the turn out as fair after registering more than 550 voters out of 1,067 registered voters.
At Lusaka's Emmasdale Basic School polling station, presiding officer Clement Lutangu said out of 1,111 voters, the centre captured 386 voters.
At Kabwata Basic School, voting started on a high note but progressed slowly in the course of the exercise.
Presiding officer, Evaristo Musolela for Kabwata said the turn out was impressive and out of 1,546 voters, more than 550 voters had cast their votes.
The highest voter turn out was at Kalingalinga Central polling district located at Kalingalinga Community Centre in Munali Constituency where by 11:50 hours, about 1,200 people had voted out of 1,744 registered voters.
In Ndola, voting was last evening extended by one hour in some polling stations which opened late due to logistical problems in the exercise marred by apathy.
Ndola electoral officer, Charity Mpande said in an interview last evening that voting was extended in some polling stations, including Northrise and Kawama, where police officers were ferried late by transporters who were hired by the Electoral Commission of Zambia.
She said some transporters did not know the location of some polling stations and drove to wrong places.
And Ms Mpande said the election in the city was generally characterised by apathy and added that there was need to increase voter sensitisation in the country.
In Mpongwe , voting started on a slow pace with the electorate deciding to first go and work in their fields before casting their votes at various polling stations.
Presiding officers in the stations visited said there was apathy as few people turned up to vote.
However, by 15:00 hours more than 500 people out of 1,281 registered voters had cast their votes at Kanyanda polling station.
In Masaiti District at Chibanda polling station, out of a total number of 255 registered voters, only 123 people had cast their votes by 16:20 hours.
Presiding officer, Aswell Lubungo said that voting was incident free.
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