AFP/Lusaka
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| Zambian opposition Patriotic Front leader Michael Sata (left) raises his fist during an election campaign rally at Mboloma village in Mkushi district ahead of the September 20 general elections |
Zambia’s chief opposition leader yesterday accused incumbent President Rupiah Banda of plotting to steal the vote when the country heads to the polls on Tuesday, as the rivals wrapped up their campaigning.
Speaking to some 6,000 supporters in the northern Zambian province of Luapula on the final official day of campaigning, Sata unleashed his typically fiery rhetoric to call on voters to kick out Banda and the ruling Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD), in power since 1991.
“MMD is mad. They will come with pre-marked ballot papers that they will give our polling agents in order to rig elections,” said the Patriotic Front leader, whose biting attacks have earned him the nickname ‘King Cobra’.
“Banda came into government through rigging elections. Banda and (MMD parliamentary chief whip Vernon) Mwaanga think that we people are stupid. Their time to go has come.”
Sata accuses Banda of stealing the vote when the rivals last faced off, in a 2008 special election he won by a slight margin to fill the remainder of late president Levy Mwanawasa’s term after he died of a stroke. Sata’s supporters rioted for days after the result was announced.
This time around, Sata is hoping to capitalise on voter fatigue with the MMD and Banda, whom he accuses of letting corruption fester and making overly generous concessions to foreign investors, particularly the Chinese.
Banda has campaigned on a platform of economic growth and development, after presiding over an economy that expanded 7.6% last year and 6.4% the year before. Its impressive growth rate is due in large part to the rising price of copper, Zambia’s chief export.