Under a new constitution, Zambia will hold presidential and parliamentary elections on Aug. 11, a government spokesman has recently said, lining up another close vote after last year’s neck-and-neck race.
The elections are expected to be a tight contest between President Edgar Lungu’s ruling Patriotic Front (PF) party and HakaindeHichilema’s opposition United Party for National Development (UPND).
Lungu is expected to assent to the constitutional amendments on Tuesday, ratifying the election date, his spokesman Amos Chanda said.
Under the previous constitution, the president set the election date every five years.
“The new constitution has a fixed election date and that will take effect as soon as the president signs,” Chanda told Reuters.
Also, President Edgar Lungu, who plans to stand in the election, has recently reversed a sharp increase in electricity tariffs, saying the hike had ended up hurting the poor, presidential spokesman Amos Chanda said.
Other amendments to Zambia’s constitution include a clause requiring a winning presidential candidate to get more than 50 percent of the valid votes cast, Chanda told Reuters.
“Obviously these are efforts intended to gain political advantage,” University of Zambia analyst Lee Habasonda said.”For now the decision to reverse the electricity tariff increase will go down well with the voters but it won’t help to resolve Zambia’s power problems,” Habasonda said.
Zambia’s state power utility Zesco Ltd. on Dec. 3 nearly doubled the price of electricity.
The International Monetary Fund had welcomed the price hike, saying it would ease power shortages that have put pressure on the economy of Africa’s No. 2 copper producer.
The tariff rises were expected to raise revenue that would see $3.7 billion invested in power generation projects, adding capacity to the national grid, Zambia’s energy regulator said.
