Zambia opposition ahead in presidential vote

LUSAKA, (Reuters) – Zambia’s opposition leader  Michael Sata held on to his lead over incumbent Rupiah Banda,  the election commission said, as counting moved beyond a halfway  point today in the race to become the next president of  Africa’s biggest copper producer.   
Police said riots had broken out in the two main towns in  the Copper Belt as people expressed frustration at a delay in  tallying the results of Tuesday’s election.   
“They are on the streets with stones and we can only urge  them to stop the riotous behaviour,” Copper Belt police chief  Martin Malama said.   
“We have not assessed the extent of the damage yet because  we are still trying to contain the situation.”   
According to the latest confirmed tally from 85 of 150  constituencies, opposition leader Michael Sata had 639,787 votes  against 542,362 for incumbent President Rupiah Banda of the  Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD).   
The vote count has been slowed by hackers attacking the  website of the Election Commission, posting a string of false  results showing Sata in the lead and causing delays to the  release of the official tally.   
It may now take until the weekend for a complete result to  be known.   
“The process appears to be slow because the results need to  be verified before release,” Commission spokesman Cris Akufuna said. Election officials are running double and triple checks  with regional counting centres.   
Banda is expected to perform more strongly in the  countryside, which is likely to report votes more slowly than  Sata’s strongholds in the capital, Lusaka, and the northern  Copper Belt, the country’s economic heartland.   
It is therefore too early to say whether Sata is on the  verge of an historic transfer of power in the former British  colony, removing the MMD from the presidency for the first time  since the end of one-party rule in 1991.   
“Results are still being tallied in some constituency  centres, and we expect to make significant progress by the end  of the day,” Akufuna said.   
Sata, known as “King Cobra” for his vicious tongue, has  toned down his rhetoric against foreign mining firms, most  notably those from China. But a victory for the 74-year-old  would still cloud the investment outlook for what has been one of frontier Africa’s most attractive prospects.   
He lost to Banda, also 74, by just 35,000 votes, or 2  percent of the electorate, in a 2008 presidential run-off  triggered by the death in office of Levy Mwanawasa.   
Political risk analysts said a Sata defeat might trigger  unrest although added that it would be short-lived and have no  impact on copper output or the wider economy.