Bye Bye By-Election - Can Sata Face The Raw Truth Of Kanchibiya?

In today’s edition of that PF mouthpiece ‘The Post’ it is reported that the MMD were trounced in the recent by-election in Kanchibiya in Northern Province, with PF getting an incredible 70% of the vote. What a great headline for Sata and his supporters. But as usual with all Post stories the truth rarely matches the headline. Closer inspection of the figures reveals that it is Sata who may be crying on 30th October.

Turn out for the by-election was a poor 33% and the reality is that it was PF people who could not be bothered to vote for their man. The fact is that the PF candidate received 2195 votes less than their 2006 candidate. The MMD candidate was down by only 492 votes. In terms of percent of votes lost PF is down 30% and the MMD only 23% when compared with the 2006 elections. After you do the maths one discovers that the MMD closed the gap on PF by 7%.

Alarmingly for Sata this by-lection took place in Northern Province, which after Lusaka and the Copper Belt is one of his strongest regions. If his vote is down 7% in this region then he is going to be in big trouble nationally. If the Kanchibiya result is replicated across Zambia on 30th October then it will be bad news for the King Cobra

Further analysis of other results show even more bad news for Mr Sata and the PF, proving that the Kanchibiya result is not a one-off either. Earlier this year in the Kanyama (Lusaka urban) by-election the PF crashed in support again. Votes won were PF 30.5% vs 40.7% in 2006, so down 10.2%; UPND 22.3% vs 33.1% in 2006, up 10.8%, and MMD 27% vs 22% in 2006, up 5%.

For some reason Sata’s people are staying at home. Is it because he is not attracting them this time around? Has he lost his sparkle? Is it because his negative campaigning is annoying even his own supporters? Are his policy u-turns driving people away? And more worryingly why is he being hammered in both the rural and urban areas? Who knows, and quite and frankly who cares, but I’ll bet a few kwacha that Sata is a very worried man; the people are rejecting him.