Chapter 9 Ethnic Mobilization, Horizontal Inequalities, and Electoral Conflict
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Abstract
Since independence Zambia has held parliamentary and local government elections regularly and is in this sense a stable democracy. In 2016, however, ethno-regional polarisation and growing horizontal inequalities apparently conspired to trigger angry expressions of group grievances based on ethnicity, perceived and existent economic stratification and party mobilisation techniques. Our data show that some politically weak provinces are economically better off than politically powerful provinces, for example, economically poor Western Province has an extremely wealthy Lozi aristocracy and educated elite whose influence in Zambian political and economic life is disproportionate to its numbers. It is simplistic therefore to assume that those who lose elections lose everything. Group grievances based nevertheless do threaten Zambian stability whatever their source.