Lusaka, Saturday (July 13, 2024)
MEDIA STATEMENT
Michigan State University’s Associate Professor Michael Wahman, has emphasized the significance of addressing low-scale election violence in Zambia.
The Political Scientist said this during the launch of his book ‘Controlling Territory, Controlling Voters; The Electoral Geography of African Campaign Violence’ at the Southern Africa Institute for Policy and Research (SAIPAR) in Lusaka.
“We asked, does election violence make you fearful of wearing party regalia? Does it make you fearful of discussing politics in public? Does it make you fearful of working in campaigns? To attend rallies or to vote? The results are really interesting,” he said.
He highlighted that while election violence in Zambia does not significantly suppress voter turnout, it does impact political participation by instilling fear and inhibiting open political discussions.
Prof. Wahman underscored the need to take low-scale election violence seriously, as it can still deter individuals from freely participating in elections, potentially compromising the depth of democracy in the nation.
“I think there are good reasons to take low-scale election violence seriously because if we look at the incentives for those who might want to perpetrate violence, I would argue that actually in many ways if you can get an outcome where people get afraid of participating in elections through low-scale election violence, that is much better than having to engage high scale violence. There are different kinds of costs that we often talk about in election violence literature. There are potential electoral costs where people might punish those who are known for election violence, there could be potential legal costs as elections could be nullified by the courts and in extreme cases like Kenya where some perpetrators were even sent to the Hague,” he said.
He also discussed the various costs associated with election violence, including electoral, legal, and international repercussions.
Prof. Wahman argued that keeping election violence at a relatively low level of severity minimizes such costs, making it an attractive strategy for those seeking to influence election outcomes through intimidation.
“With all these costs, I would argue that if you keep election violence at a fairly low level in terms of severity, the costs are minimal. In terms of legal costs, basically none. There are very few elections that have been nullified due to violence. If you look at Intercontinental costs, basically none. If you look at the Election Monitoring Reports as I did in this book, you see that monitors will talk about isolated events of violence, sporadic violence, and continuous violence, even though I would argue that it has been systematic violence though at a lower level of intensity,” he said.
