PRESIDENT Michael Sata has thanked the people of Livingstone for allowing the Patriotic Front (PF) to make a grand entry into Southern Province through Lawrence Evans who won the Livingstone Central parliamentary by-election held on Thursday.

The Southern Province was hitherto a United Party for National Development (UPND) stronghold.

UPND's Regina Musokotwane came out second in the polls that were initially postponed from February 28 to March 14 due to violence that led to loss of one person.

Mr Evans received 10, 233 votes and was followed by Ms Musokotwane who polled 8, 198 votes.

MMD's Fred Siasuntwe got 2, 034 votes, while Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP)'s Angela Ikabongo and UNIP's Green Mwanang'ombe managed 203 and 179 respectively.

A total number of 21, 000 ballot papers were cast out of 67, 732 registered voters, while rejected ballot papers were 156.

In his congratulatory message, Mr Sata thanked the people of Livingstone and the Southern Province in general for endorsing his administration's development agenda.

He said the people in the province had sent a clear message to the UPND that they were not interested in insults, bloodshed and regionalism.

Mr Sata said the PF would work hard to deliver and was hopeful that the UPND had picked some lessons from the Livingstone elections.

Returning Officer Elester Hazinji declared Mr Evans as duly-elected Livingstone Member of Parliament (MP) around 01:30 hours yesterday amidst jubilation and honking from PF supporters.

Meanwhile, the UPND has attributed its failure to retain the Livingstone Central parliamentary seat to intimidation.

UPND secretary general Winstone Chibwe said in an interview yesterday that the playing field was not levelled.

"The ground was not even, that is a fact. There was a lot of intimidation, particularly from the police. Charity Katanga became a cadre of the PF!" he said.

The Human Rights Commission (HRC) expressed satisfaction with the peaceful manner in which the Livingstone by-elections were conducted.

Commission chairperson Pixie Yangailo said in a statement in Lusaka yesterday that the electorate, political parties and their supporters generally conducted themselves in a peaceful manner.