The firebrand opposition challenger in Zambia’s knife-edge presidential race risks isolation at home and abroad if the result does not go his way and he incites simmering unrest among his supporters, the head of the African Union’s election observer mission has warned.
Africa’s biggest copper producer faces a stiff test to its reputation as a bastion of stability in a volatile region after partial results suggested the contest between Rupiah Banda, the current acting president, and Michael Sata, who has roused the urban poor with prodigious promises and jobs and spending, will go to the wire.
