Voting in Lusaka Central constituency starts on a good note

Voting in selected polling stations in Lusaka Central constituency started on a good note in the presidential election this morning with many voting points recording long queues before 06:00 hours.

Woodlands ‘B’, Nyumba Yanga, Bauleni and Woodlands ‘A’ polling stations were characterized by queues as early as 05:50hours.

By 06:00 hours when Joseph Kaoma, the presiding officer for Woodlands Extension polling station announced the official opening of the polling station, more people were trooping into the polling stations at Woodlands ‘B’ School.

At Bedrock and Woodlands ‘B’ polling stations in Woodlands polling district, the first voters arrived as early as 04:30 hours and 04:45 hours respectively.

The presiding officer Danny Nyondo, arrived at Bedrock polling station at Woodlands ‘B’ basic school at 04:30 hours.

At Woodlands ‘A’ polling stations, over 600 voters out of the total of 2,520 registered voters had cast their votes by 08:00hours.

Woodlands ‘A’ East presiding officer, Mutelo Njekwa said over 300 people had voted in both streams while at Woodlands ‘A’ West polling station, a similar number of people had cast their votes by 08:00hours.

Mr. Njekwa described the turn out as very good especially that at least 30 percent of people had already voted by 08:00hours at his polling station.

The youth, the middle aged and the aged made up the long queues that formed in the four areas that were visited by the ZANIS crew this morning.

There are 60,099 registered voters in Lusaka Central constituency. Zambia has 150 constituencies with a total of 5,167,154 registered voters.

A total of 11 political parties have sponsored candidates for today’s presidential election.

The candidates are Nevers Mumba of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), Edgar Lungu of the Patriotic Front (PF) which is also a ruling party, Hakainde Hichilema of the United Party for National Development (UPND), Edith Nawakwi of the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD) and Elais Chipimo Jr of the National Restoration Party (NAREP).

Others are Godfrey Miyanda of the Heritage Party, Tilyenji Kaunda of the United National Independence Party (UNIP), Daniel Pule of the Christian Democratic Party (CDP), Ludwig Sondashi for the Forum for Democratic Alternatives (FDA), Peter Sinkamba of the Green Party and Eric Chanda of the Fourth Revolution (4R).

The winner of today’s presidential election will become Zambia’s sixth president and will succeed Michael Sata who died in October last year.