ZAMBIA DECIDES

Finally the day has come. Today Zambians are voting for their next president. The main candidates are the current President Mr Edgar Chagwa Lungu from the Patriotic Front and Mr Hakainde Hichilema from the United Party for National Development.

It has been a grueling campaign period and unfortunately there were nasty incidents of violence in some places. Three people were reported to have died during this period with the most notable one being the shooting to death of a woman in Lusaka. This led to the suspension of campaigns in the capital city.

Zambia has been a beacon of peace for a long time. We have enjoyed peace in this nation for over 50 years. I am not saying there hasn't been any tense or volatile moments. We have had our share of violence but we have never seen bloodshed at a large scale.

This country had a number of coup attempts in the past. There have been food riots. Our town's were bombed by Rhodesian planes when we were harboring freedom fighters from that country.

Many young Zambians may not have witnessed these incidents  but will certainly remember the tense moment of waiting for the election results in 2011 when the late president Mr Michael Chilufya Sata  was elected as the fifth president.

I hope that this year we shall not go through the same situation. The lessons we learned from 2011 must be put to good use.

During this year's campaign period a number of people were complaining about the methods or strategies used by political parties.

Many of us were uncomfortable seeing party cadres wearing berets and military fatigues. I expected some authorities to step in and stop this but alas nothing happened. The young cadres even went to the gym and pumped up their bodies.

The most annoying campaign strategy was the playing of loud music in residential areas in the night when people were sleeping. To make matters worse most of the music did not have any positive message but was just aimed at ridiculing their opponents.

Youths perched on top of moving vehicles was one other sight that caused concern. It was a total disregard of traffic regulations and a number of people were reportedly injured after falling off.

My hope is that we must enforce the rules to avoid some of the mistakes that we have seen. I really would like the period of playing loud campaign music to be between 06:00 hours and 18:00hrs.

Campaign vehicles should not be overloaded with people and other traffic regulations must be strictly followed.

Finally, I don't know why the referendum was put on the same date with the General Elections. Many Zambians do not understand what it is all about. Already there are reports  that many people ignored the referendum.

Tomorrow the nation will be glued to the radio, television and the Internet waiting to hear if their preferred candidates have been elected or not.