CASTING a ballot, be it during the general or by-elections, is one of Zambia’s human rights any citizen of voting age is entitled to.
However, except for the presidential and general elections of 1991 which ushered into power the MMD and experienced overwhelming turnout of the electorate, subsequent elections have witnessed voter apathy with figures dwindling from one election to the other.
One theory advanced is that there was massive turn out of voters during the 1991 presidential and general elections because Zambians wanted regime change.
It is widely believed that many Zambians, obviously tired of more than two decades of single party rule by the United National Independence Party (UNIP), wanted another party with fresh ideas to take over the country’s governance.
Hence the eagerness of majority Zambian electorate then, culminating into more than two-thirds of those people that had registered to vote to turn out at polling stations.
The MMD, then led by late president Frederick Chiluba, trounced the once mighty UNIP in all but Eastern Province.
Nearly all elections and by-elections that followed since then had been recording worrisome low levels of the electorate casting their ballot.
It would, however, be safe to mention that this year’s presidential election which was occasioned by the demise of President Michael Sata in London’s King Edward V11 Hospital, on October 28, 2014 recorded the lowest voter turn out.
Figures released by the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) show that only 1,671,662 Zambian voters turned out to vote on January 20, 2015 in the election which eventually saw the Patriotic Front’s Edgar Lungu emerge victorious.
This paltry figure was out of 5,166,084 registered voters appearing on the 2010 voters’ roll, and was partly blamed on some voters either relocating from their bases or passing on.
Other people have, meanwhile, blamed this state of affairs on the failure by the ECZ to register any new voters, apparently because of time constraint.
ECZ had just 90 days in which to conduct the presidential election, a good part of which was ‘wasted’ by leadership wrangles in especially two biggest parties, the PF and the MMD.
Huge crowds that appeared at campaign rallies, like on many such occasions, may after all be misleading because these were not reflected in the number of the electorate that went to cast their ballot on voting day.
There are other reasons advanced, varied though, and include heavy downpours on this particular day. Yet during campaign rallies thousands of people could be seen braving the rains to listen to the candidates of their political parties.
In any case, how come there was massive turnout of voters in some regions, yet the whole country was affected by heavy rains on January 20, 2015? one may ask.
Other people have attributed apathy in the recent election particularly to voter fatigue which they say could have been a major factor in last month’s low voter turn out.
The level of voter apathy was surely shocking and is perhaps incomparable to no other country. Nigerians will soon be holding their own election and voters likely to turn up to cast their ballot will obviously be massive.
Of course that country’s population is huge. However this aside, Nigerians equally know that they have a constitutional right to choose leaders of their own choice and must, therefore, go and vote.
With voter education conducted by ECZ together with NGOs, the church and other stakeholders, a message on the importance of voting can be understood by the Zambians and, consequently, end voter apathy.