Congratulations to President-elect Edgar Lungu and Vice President-elect Inonge Wina who have won the presidential elections with 50.4% of valid votes cast. They also won clearly 6 out of 10 provinces, demonstrating a very wide rural and urban reach.
Mrs Ingonge has become the first directly elected Vice President of Zambia. Mr Lungu has become the first candidate to secure above 50% for two decades. He is now a popular president statistically.
PF-1,860,877
UPND-1,760,347
FDD-24,149
PAC- 15,791
RAINBOW-9,504
UPP-9,221
UNIP-8,928
GREENS-4,515
DA-2,378
Hakainde Hichilema and Geoffrey Mwamba must be congratulated too for a very hard fought campaign. And of course our Zambian people who have been extremely patient as always despite some young, restless and foreign influenced Twitterati inciting disharmony.
The election of Edgar Lungu is a much better outcome than the alternative in terms of stability because he will be able to govern effectively with over 50% MPs in parliament. This is vital given the economic predicament we are in.
It would have been quite challenging for HH to push forward much needed structural reforms had he won. An HH presidency would have struggled to pass a UPND Budget. It might even led to policy paralysis and possible collapse of government.
One final note:
The great outcome of these elections is that Zambians have now learnt to distinguish between the president and MPs. It has been good to see many independents elected with the presidential voting going for a different candidate.
We are maturing as a democracy.
