Zambia's Sata leading in vote count

Zambia’s opposition leader, Michael Sata has taken an early lead in the presidential vote count on Wednesday.

Winning chances

There were over 5 million registered voters and the first tally released by the Election Commission put Sata on 24,073 votes against 12,788 for the incumbent Rupiah Banda of the Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD).

So far, results from one urban and two rural constituencies show that Sata, a vocal critic of Chinese mining investment has the chance of ousting Banda's MMD for the first time since the end of one-party rule in 1991.

However, report says the result from just three of 150 constituencies was too small to say whether he would go on to win the election.

Reuter/Adekusibe