A Brutal Lesson From Zambian Politics: No Internet, No Votes
By John Masuku
By shutting down the internet on August 12 election day in Zambia, the government of Edgar Lungu thought that it had found a tactic to stop people from sharing information on how others voted in different parts of the southern African country.
But Sam Phiri, a CMDS fellow and lecturer in the Department of Media and Communication Studies at the University of Zambia thinks that by taking such drastic action, Lungu’s Patriotic Front (PF) administration was actually shooting itself in the foot, eventually paving way for voters, mainly youngsters, to bring to power five-time election loser Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development (UPND).
The Zambian presidential and parliamentary elections brought a tight race between one of the country’s richest businessmen Hichilema and incumbent Edgar Lungu. Hichilema, who won after five unsuccessful runs, used his humble origins as a cattle herder and his entry into the corporate world as a finance, property, healthcare, tourism and ranching entrepreneur to appeal to the electorate.
Lungu had been in power since 2015 when he took over the presidency after the death in office of Michael Sata. He needed a constitutional court approval to run again after the expiry of his second term, as Zambia’s constitution states that anyone who has been elected president twice cannot be re-elected for a third time.
The internet restrictions were imposed three days before the elections, when authorities in Zambia intentionally blocked access to popular social media platforms, including WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. The shutdown frustrated many, as it affected their ability to send and receive information about the election, while also disrupting their lives, work, education, and relationships.
The restrictions remained in effect while the votes were being counted, leading Phiri to argue that the shutdown may have been part of “a ploy of stopping the results from being leaked, as these were made available to the political party monitors at constituency level before they were ‘verified’ by the electoral commission headquarters and thereafter announced to the whole nation.”
Civil society organizations took the election management body to court, bringing an end to the internationally condemned practice of internet closure and violation of rights with a court order.
Phiri says that the internet blackout dealt Lungu and his former ruling party a heavy blow. “The impact of the shutdown may have worked against the PF,” he said. “Voters already on the queues to the booth felt frustrated that they could not talk to their colleagues in other parts of the country. They could then have decided to vote against the party.”
He described tempering with the internet as a terrible miscalculation.
“How do you suddenly take away Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, and Twitter from the youth and expect them to support you? A serious blunder indeed.”
The Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) regional delegation that monitored the elections was equally appalled by the shutdown.
“The throttling and subsequent internet disruptions in Zambia on the day of elections are deplorable, given that elections are at the core of the exercise of democracy and respect of citizens’ rights. […] Internet access equates to access to information and to the realisation of the right to freedom of expression,” said Golden Maunganidze, MISA regional chairperson who also chairs the MISA Zimbabwe board.
Restricting the internet was not the only way the government meddled with the media.
In the run-up to the poll, the government had closed privately owned Prime TV, a popular and critical channel, with the regulator, the Independent Broadcasting Authority, arguing, ”the cancellation of the license is necessary in the interest of public safety, security, peace, welfare, or good order.”
The Carter Center electoral expert mission to Zambia also noted some misinformation tactics on government-controlled information outlets.
“The repeated broadcast of disinformation and political content by the online accounts of state-owned media contributed to the unlevel playing field, advantaging incumbent President Edgar C. Lungu,” it wrote.
Phiri described the August Zambian plebiscite as “a social media election” observing that “new campaign methods were used by all parties, including mis-, dis-, and mal-information campaigns. The youth registered to vote and they voted in large numbers. They voted for hope, the promise of jobs and free education. All these aspirations were widely discussed on many social media platforms.”
Music, as a popular traditional storytelling tool in African communication also played a huge part in upping the gear of the election campaign. According to Phiri, what stood out prominently was the use of musicians by Lungu’s losing PF party in projecting their messages.
Zambia has a diverse media environment, yet it remains polarized along party lines. The elections only added to the divisions, with “a noticeable increase in hate speech, misinformation, and cyberbullying through various media channels. The election coverage by the public broadcaster, Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC), was perceived by some stakeholders as biased in favour of the ruling party,” said the African Union Election Observation Mission.
Phiri agrees. “Government media insulted the opposition, promoted ethnic sentiments against the Tonga people who mainly hail from Zambia’s Southern Province where the opposition leader (now president) Hichilema has his roots.
What we had in Zambia, during the elections, were media funded from public money but not accountable to the public and not owned by the public as such.”
He added: “As for the private media: these were more independent as they sought to investigate some of the flaws of the governing political party. On the other hand, one private newspaper, The Daily Nation, acted as if it was part of the government media.”
Phiri was generally disappointed with the standard of election coverage.
“It was generally poor and not issue based. Sadly, lack of safety was of concern with some journalists being beaten by contesting political party activists.”
Nigel Nyamutumbu coordinator of the Media Alliance of Zimbabwe (MAZ) who was part of the MISA regional delegation expressed similar sentiments: “Unfortunate reports of harassment of the media by various agents should be investigated and culprits brought to book. There is need to strengthen the media capacity to mainstream gender in electoral coverage and provide more coverage to female candidates as part of the media development agenda.”
As expected among newly elected African leaders when entering office, Hichilema, in his victory speech, promised a free media operational environment.
“The UPND government is not there to shut down Prime Television … (Prime TV), sorry about what happened to you. Shutting down media houses will not happen under our administration, you will operate as a business, you know your obligations as a business. But no political hand will be there to shut down your business.”
But only time will tell.
John Masuku is a Zimbabwe-based broadcast journalist/media trainer and Executive Director of Radio Voice of the People (VOP). He is a fellow of the CEU Democracy Institute’s Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) in Budapest, Hungary. John can be contacted at jjwpmasuku55@gmail.com or via Twitter at @john_masuku.
