Tension is begining to build up in Zambia ahead of next week’s presidential elections, prompting an unprecedented military deployment to quell violence.
The presidential election on August 12 is largely a two-horse battle between President Edgar Lungu, 64, and Hakainde Hichilema, 59, who is running for the sixth time.
According to authorities, since the campaign began in May, rival supporters with axes and machetes have clashed occasionally, resulting in at least three deaths.
Members of the ruling Patriotic Front were all killed.
Lungu dispatched the army to assist the police in maintaining “peace and order” after two people were clubbed to death over the weekend.
“I have taken this step in order to ensure that the electoral process… is not interfered with,” he said in a statement on Sunday.
“It’s clearly an intimidation technique,” said Ringisai Chikohomero, a researcher at the Pretoria-based Institute for Security Studies (ISS) think tank, told AFP.
Nicole Beardsworth, a politics lecturer at South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand, said the the race was “exceptionally tight” and more unrest was likely.
Lungu emerged narrow victor over Hichilema in snap presidential elections in 2015 and in general polls the following year.
But rising food prices and unemployment have fuelled disillusionment with him.