Zambia suspends announcements of presidential election results

Zambia’s Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, Justice Irene Mambilima, announced the suspension of presidential election results on Tuesday at a press briefing.

According to Mambilima, if the commission continues to announce the results, voters could be unduly influenced by the voting patterns. Some polling stations were still taking voters by Wednesday morning, due to the torrential rains that prevented them from voting on Tuesday.

In the results announced so far, the candidate of the ruling Patriotic Front (PF), Edgar Lungu, is leading with 92,026 votes, and is followed by the candidate of the United Party for National Development (UPND), Hakainde Hichilema, who has 44,902 votes. None of the nine other candidates had received up to 2,000 votes at the time the suspension was announced.

The winner of the election is expected to complete the term of the late president Michael Sata who died in office last year.

UPDATE: AFP reported police tear-gassed 100 opposition supporters (United Party for National Development – Hakainde Hichilema) as they waited for election results outside a conference centre in Lusaka.

Source: Electoral Commission of Zambia and Yahoo/AFP