The Zambian Election

The Zambian election that took place earlier this week took an interesting turn when technology came into the picture. The incumbent, Rupiah Banda, was a member of a party that had been in power for twenty years and was behind in the polls. The challenger, Michael Sata, came out strongly criticizing Chinese involvement in the mining industry of the country and the lack of oversight on Chinese-run mines. Prior to the election, stories came out that the vice president was accusing opposition parties and private media of attempting to undermine the results of the election and incite violence.

Shortly after the election, riots began to occur because the Electoral Commission of Zambia's website had been hacked, and announced that Sata had won in a landslide. While the website was taken down temporarily and the fake results were removed, the riots were minor and the real results were announced before the end of the week, it was an interesting example of the role of technology in Africa, especially in terms of the electoral process. The readings this week talked about the globalization of the media. Journalists weren't covering the Zambian elections as much as they would for a country like Zimbabwe or Sudan, there isn't a lot of interest in a relatively stable and democratic country. There was coverage in the Chinese media because of their history in the country, especially following the shooting of Zambian miners in a Chinese-run mine by the Chinese mangers. The story was covered, but since then Zambia has fallen out of the spotlight until the hacking of the website to change the results.

This relates to the Castells reading, because it talked about how globalization is creating a challenge for nation-states as a set of institutions. The changing media landscape in places like Zambia is changing how elections and other major events occur. The way they are communicating with the people in the country has changed, they are engaging the citizens of Zambia differently. There is easier and more widespread access to the internet so people can get the poll results online instead of listening for the announcement on the television or radio or even by word of mouth. But that has also created the chance for a crisis of communication, supporters of Sata used the technology to their advantage. They hacked into the website and said that he won in a landslide. The results that are being reported now say he won with 43 percent of the vote. But this is an example of how the changing face of the media, and the growing globalization of the media, is creating a challenge for governments. They need to ensure that websites like those of their Electoral Commissions have the firewalls necessary so people can't hack in and announce the wrong results. But it never would have happened only a few years ago in Zambia, which is why no one probably would have predicted that this would have occurred.