I choose words carefully and invite those who wish to take issue with what I write to know this. I never wished Hichilema death. I said that what could save him from defeat on 13 August is pre-ballot death. To avoid misrepresentation, here is what I said. “Hichilema will lose the election on 13 August. The only thing that can save him from defeat is pre-ballot death or industrial scale vote-rigging. Never again should Zambia elect a lying, tribal, corrupt, unpatriotic, vindictive, hypocritical, lawless, and undemocratic scumbag.”
Of relevance are the first two sentences.
The first sentence establishes the election under discussion: the one that is set for 13 August this year. This is the date that is prescribed by Zambia’s constitution. I made the assertion that Hichilema will lose this election based on his policy failures that are explained in the article that accompanied the post. The notion that Hichilema will lose the 13 August election is my opinion, one that I stated in the service of my exercise of freedom of expression. Someone else may formulate and express a different opinion. Anyone who does so has the freedom to state and promote the said opinion.
The second sentence is linked to the first one but, explains what I consider to be the circumstances under which Hichilema may be saved from defeat. I discussed two scenarios. The first is pre-ballot death. Article 52 of Zambia’s constitution provides that “Where a candidate sponsored by a political party dies before the date prescribed for the holding of an election, the Electoral Commission shall cancel the election, and call for the filing of a fresh nomination by the political party whose candidate died, and the election shall be held within thirty days of filing of the fresh nomination.”
The import of this provision is that no presidential election will take place on 13 August if ANY of the 14 validly nominated presidential candidates dies before the election date. Were this to happen, Hichilema would have been saved from defeat because the election would not take place. I cannot discuss the possible rescheduled election - in the event of pre-ballot death of any of the 14 candidates - because doing so would be premature since I do not know the would-be candidates. I do not even know if Hichilema would be running in that election. This explains why I only discussed the election set for 13 August. The second scenario in which I said Hichilema could be saved from defeat is if he rigged the election on an industrial scale. This is self-explanatory.
I therefore do not understand how anyone sane could accuse me of wishing Hichilema death in this case. I never did.
Ghana has rejected a $109m US health deal over data protection concerns.
Zimbabwe has also turned down a similar offer.
The BBC’s Thomas Naadi explains why some African nations are pushing back.