 And joining us to speak on the aftermath of the election is Farai Muvoti, he is a senior analyst with the Southern African Times. Thank you very much for joining us Farai. Thank you so much for having me. So of course the elections have come and gone a winner has been declared and a lot of you know eyes are on Zambia. Can we really now say that the votes of the people in Zambia has counted because you know in Africa we're always picking holes in our election process. Well thank you again for having me. I think Zambia continues to strengthen its democratic processes. This is not for the first time that there's been a smooth transfer of power. This has happened continuously over the existence of the country post-colonization. They have continued to always demonstrate a sense of the dexterity as far as it concerns their democratic institutions. What we have seen largely is a peaceful election that of course had its initial hiccups with political violence in the country and during the process towards the elections where the military was then deployed and security measures had been taken put into place to ensure that the stability of the country was preserved and after that the Zambian electoral commission announced the event of the election and we've since seen a meeting between the former head of state who is president Lumu the outgoing rather head of state and the president that he nominated the elected rather head of state HHS affectionately call him Ichelima or who is of course now going to be the president of Zambia and they had a meeting discussing that particular process in the presence of the EU electoral observers as well as the Commonwealth. So it's equally a demonstration that Zambia's democratic process is much alive and thriving. Now I mean Africans have watched several elections happen in 2020. I remember the Ugandan election where you know we saw Bobby Wine running. He was harassed. What lessons do you think that African countries that may not be as small as Zambia especially countries like Nigeria and Ghana can learn from what is happening the smallest democratic handover power in Zambia. What can we learn from it and even countries who have had maybe some something close to or even better than Zambia. What's the lesson to learn? Well I think the lessons are not limited to just Africa. I think the lessons are as we've seen with the US election recently. I think the lessons are for the world to observe that there is a magnanimity in defeat as is the case with victory. Zambia has stood as an example of the strength of young institutions that are still blossoming. It's equally an example of unity as a country that equally had its own challenges in as far as the political consultations. But those contestations did not become their plight within the context of a bad outcome. What we did see is people being able to rise above it and leadership a fortitude of or rather leaders demonstrating fortitude equally able to discuss even after having a very constrained relations during the electoral process. I think if anything the lessons that we can take away is that Africa and the world can continue to strengthen democratic ethos through ensuring that the processes and the institutions there are far respected and remain independent. Now let's talk about the fact that the economy in the country has been a major concern and now the president-elect obviously has his job cut out for him. What do you think that Hakinde Hichilema has or will be doing differently judging from his precedent? Well I think he has quite a journey but part of his electoral premises of course were to ensure that he strengthens the economy by firstly dealing with the issues of debt. So his first point of call would be having discussions with the IMF and all their and all Zambian international lenders be it the Paris club as well as the Chinese and having a discussion around how they can restructure that debt that would be the first point of call. That would then I suppose determine the kind of policies that he will be putting in place. I'd like to put a bold prediction here that he might go towards the austerity way which I think depending on how it is done may or maybe hum for or equally helpful but it's really down to the way he will go but from just looking at his background as a guy who is a corporate finance guy and a guy who's been in the private business for quite a long time and looking at his external alliances but more so looking predominantly at his policies. I think we will be seeing a more leaning towards a neoliberal sort of disposition in as far as his policy orientation would be concerned. Now we're yet to see if this is going to be helpful to the country I think Africa in particular in as far as neoliberalism is concerned has seen a lot of challenges. So it would be quite interesting to see how he navigates the fundamental arguments at Zambia is meant to have a loan which pertains to the ownership structures of the of the biggest supplier foreign currency which tends to be the mining sector and to see how he will revamp that if there will be any ownership discussions in that regard if he will move towards equally diversifying the economy. So he does have quite a lot to work on but judging by his policies I think his entry point of course will be discussing to markets reassuring the markets that they will not be defaulting on their debts and trying to ensure that it's restructured and then moving forward accordingly but I think the type of deals that he will strike with the institutions such as the IMF and the international funders will determine the kind of policies in terms of monetary policy he will go. Well Farai Mavuti is a senior analyst with the southern african times thank you very much for speaking with us we appreciate it. Thank you for having me. Great. Hello hope you enjoyed the news please do subscribe to our youtube channel and don't forget to hit the notification button so you get notified about fresh news updates.