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At the invitation of the President of Zambia, the Commonwealth Secretary-General, Mr Kamalesh Sharma, constituted an Observer Group for the 20 September 2011 General Elections. In line with usual practice, the Secretary-General sent an Assessment Mission to Zambia to assess the prevailing situation as well as the pre-electoral environment, prior to his final decision on whether to constitute a Commonwealth Observer Group. The Assessment Mission was in the country from 31 July to 5 August 2011.

The early inhabitants of modern day Zambia were the San, who were hunter-gatherers. In the 15th century, the Bantu or Tonga migrated from the North. The 16-19th century saw the emergence of organised kingdoms, including the Kazembe (North), Bemba (North-East) Chewa (East) and the Lozi (West). There are 73 ethnic groups in present day Zambia.

Executive power in Zambia rests with the President, who is the Head of State, Head of Government and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The President is elected for a five-year term and can serve a maximum of two terms in office. The President appoints the Vice-President, ministers, deputy ministers and provincial ministers. In addition the President also appoints the Attorney-General, the Solicitor-General and the Director of Public Prosecutions and the permanent secretaries in the ministries.

In accordance with the official election timetable issued by the Electoral Commission of Zambia on 3 August 2011, the official campaigns for the General Elections commenced on 29 July 2011 and concluded at 06.00 on 18 September 2011. The introduction of a two-day “cooling off” period, prior to the Election Day on 20 September 2011, was a new innovation. The programme for the campaign rallies of Presidential candidates was coordinated by the Electoral Commission of Zambia, in consultation with the parties and police.

On Tuesday 20 September 2011 elections took place across Zambia for the President, National Assembly and local councils. There were 6,546 polling stations, incorporating 9,022 polling streams. Polling stations were either single stream or multi-stream in the event that a polling station had in excess of 850 voters; though this was not consistently the case.

The 20 September 2011 elections in Zambia were the country’s 5th multi-party elections and despite some shortcomings represent further progress for the country in strengthening its democratic processes. Many of the benchmarks for democratic elections have been met, even though some shortcomings do remain to be addressed for the future, and overall the process was credible.