Over at Zambia Online, I have recently published a three-part series that attempts to forecast the results of the 2016 Zambian elections. In the first part, I took a historical trip through the previous four elections beginning in 2001 and I focused on explaining some of the main factors that determined how the electoral map evolved and finally gave a win for the first time to an opposition party after 20 years of multiparty democracy. I concluded by showing statistically that under the current three-party system, about 40% of the presidential votes and not less than 50 parliamentary seats are required to win the elections.
In the second part, I analysed the various strengths and weaknesses of the three main candidates and their respective parties. I showed that the 2011 win of the current ruling party was very weak and not emphatic enough to secure their place beyond five years. Their growing unpopularity is sure to land them outside the corridors of power come 2016. I included some charts showing how election results for each party compared against each other.
In the third part, I made a 2016 forecast based on many charts I had generated which showed the performance of each party at presidential and parliamentary level over the last ten years. I gave qualitative reasons of how I ranked each party in each province based not only on their historical performance, but also other current factors. I discussed factors that may alter the forecast including wild-card events.
The articles in full are here:
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