PF wins Chawama, Masaiti seats

The ruling Patriotic Front (PF) has scooped the Chawama and Masaiti parliamentary seats and has taken a commanding lead in Senga Hill constituency.

PF Chawama candidate Lawrence Sichalwe was declared winner by the Returning Officer Hellen Mubita at around midnight.

Mr. Sichalwe polled 7, 502 from all the poling stations whilst his rival of the UPND Charles Kaselwa had 3, 219, in the third place is UNIP’s candidate Biwel Kaluba with 251, Fourth Revolution Party’s candidate Benson Silwimba had 44 and in the last position is NRP’s candidate Martha Mumba who had 25 votes.

Chawama constituency has a total of 38 poling stations with 69, 228 registered voters out of which 37,136 are male while 32,093 are female.

The total votes cast for Chawama by-election was 11, 104 with sixty three rejected votes.

And the PF candidate for Masaiti Michael Katambo was declared winner by Returning Officer Modest Simutala at around 04:30hrs.

Mr. Katambo polled 5,032 against his closest rival of the UPND Peter Mumba who polled 2,150.

Announcing the full results at around 04:30 hours this morning, Returning Officer Modest Simutala says Mr. Katambo has polled 5,032 while the UPND candidate Peter Mumba has 2,150, Independent candidate Lyton Muloka has 41, UNIP’s Lason Musumali got 36 votes, Fourth Revolution candidate Mobby Mutaya polled 16, and a total of 92 votes were rejected.

Meanwhile, Kapembwa Simbao of the ruling Patriotic Front is likely to retain his parliamentary seat.

Our staffer Lazarous Sichula reports from Senga Hill Constituency in Mbala that out of 37 polling stations counted out of 47, the PF candidate has polled 5, 764, while UPND’s Giles Yambayamba has managed to get 3, 141.

The Masaiti and Senga Hill seats fell vacant after election petitions while for the Chawama seat its serving MP, President Lungu was voted as Zambia’s Republican President in January.

Meanwhile, the newly elected Chawama Law Maker Lawrence Sichalwe has assured residents of Chawama that he will not let them down.

Mr. Sichalwe, who could not hide his emotions, says he will ensure that he listens to issues affecting the people of Chawama Constituency.