Zambia - 1996 Election
By the end of Chiluba's first term as President (1996), the MMD's commitment to political reform had faded in the face of re-election aspirations. A number of prominent supporters founded opposing parties. Relying on the MMD's overwhelming majority in parliament, President Chiluba in May 1996 pushed through constitutional amendments that eliminated former President Kaunda and other prominent opposition leaders from the 1996 presidential elections.
On 18 November 1996 elections were held for all the elective seats of the National Assembly on the normal expiry of the members' term of office. The election date was set shortly before polling, in October. It coincided with the presidential poll, in which four candidates challenged the incumbent, Mr. Frederick Chiluba.
During the somewhat negative campaign, the manifesto of the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), "changing Zambia for good", focused on economic expansion (especially the creation of new jobs through fresh capital investment), continued privatization of state enterprises and enhanced democracy. The main opposition United National Independence Party (UNIP), which held 25 elected seats in the outgoing Parliament and was led by former President Kenneth Kaunda, accused the Government of corruption and drug dealing, among other things; it ultimately boycotted the elections after Mr. Kaunda was declared ineligible to run for the presidency. Altogether 11 parties and 100 independent candidates (of a total of 593) contested the parliamentary seats.
On a generally peaceful polling day marked by a low turnout, the MMD swept to an across-the-board victory as Mr. Chiluba was re-elected for a five-year term by a wide margin over Mr. Dean Mugomba of the Zambian Democratic Congress (ZDC) and the party captured over 130 of the 150 elective National Assembly seats. These results were contested by the opposition alliance, which alleged fraud, as well as by the Committee for a Clean Campaign (CCC), an internal monitor which did not deem the electoral procedures free and fair. On 2 December, the make-up of the new reshuffled Cabinet was announced.
In the presidential and parliamentary elections held in November 1996, Chiluba was re-elected, and the MMD won 131 of the 150 seats in the National Assembly. Kaunda's UNIP party boycotted the parliamentary polls to protest the exclusion of its leader from the presidential race, alleging in addition that the outcome of the election had been predetermined due to a faulty voter registration exercise. As President Chiluba began his second term in 1997, the opposition and civil society challenged the results of the election amid international efforts to encourage the MMD and the opposition to resolve their differences through dialogue.
Chiluba soon also garnered a reputation for the kind of authoritarian tendencies which had been derided in Kaunda: sacking colleagues, jailing outspoken journalists, bullying off opponents and rounding up rivals. “I am a political engineer,” he would declare after ousting opponents. In 1997, he survived a military coup and then used the incident to detain several of his opponents, including Kaunda.
Chiluba won a second and final five-year term in 1997 but in the lead up to elections in 2001 he repeatedly proposed changes to the constitution that would allow him a third term. A backlash from Zambians forced him to back away from the proposals. After he left office his hand-picked successor Levy Mwanawasa instituted anti-corruption investigations and Chiluba was charged with misappropriating $500,000 to his personal account.
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