Newly elected Patriotic Front Livingstone Member of Parliament Lawrence Evans says his victory in the March 14 by-election did not come as a surprise.

Evans was declared winner of the delayed poll, whose earlier date for February 29 was postponed due to violence, after polling 10, 223 defeating the United Party for National Development candidate Regina Musokotwane who garnered 8,198 votes.

Movement for Multi Party Democracy's Fred Siasuntwe was in distant third with 2034 while the United National Independence Party's Green Mwanagombe polled 125. Presiding officer Vivian Chikoti declared Evans MP, the first ever for PF in Southern Province, duly elected.

"I'm looking forward to working with people of Livingstone. I have been a resident here for a long time. My first priority is to improve water and sanitation but I will sit down with relevant stakeholders before this can be done.

The victory didn't come as a surprise and I knew that I will win," Evans said without elaborating what made him sure of winning in an election observers say was marred with violence, electoral fraud, intimidation and excessive abuse of government resources.

Losing candidate Musokotwane conceded defeat but refused to congratulate Evans because of the fraudulent nature of elections.

"I don't feel that I have lost. I have lost not because the people of Livingstone don't love me but because the PF bought people," she said.

Musokotwane said people didn't want PF but the money they were given made the difference in the election on Thursday.

"That's is why they postponed elections for them to buy people. If people didn't want me, I would have been sad,"

Musokotwane said.

" The possibility of challenging the results will be decided by the party after conducting a postmortem of the election."

Vote buying incidents were recorded even on the day of the poll when PF cadre Judge Ngoma was caught red-handed giving money to voters at a polling station and when confronted fired live bullets.