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Gold/Mining/Energy : Copper - analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Stephen O who wrote (1486)	9/29/2006 11:09:10 AM
From: Stephen O	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2131

Zambian Challenger Sata Set for Poll Win, Standard Bank Says 2006-09-29 08:47 (New York) By Paul Richardson Sept. 29 (Bloomberg) -- Zambia's leading opposition leader Michael Sata, who has pledged to raise taxes on mining companies and limit foreign ownership, is on course to win the country's presidential election, Standard Bank Group Ltd. said. With a third of the results declared, ``analysts are predicting a Sata win of between 50 percent and 60 percent of the national vote,'' Standard Bank, Africa's biggest lender, said in an e-mailed note to clients. ``This will come as a disappointment to investors.'' The election in Zambia, Africa's biggest copper producer, pitted President Levy Mwanawasa Mwanawasa, who has presided over economic growth in excess of 5 percent and the lowest inflation in 30 years, against Sata, who has pledged to give Zambians a greater share of the country's wealth. Official results in the country's 1,422 electoral wards in 150 constituencies will only start being released after 6 p.m., the Electoral Commission of Zambia said in Lusaka today. Final results will be delayed as voting continued today in the towns of Shangombo and Kalabo after vehicles carrying ballot papers broke down yesterday, said head of the commission, Dan Kalale. Sata's party, the Patriotic Front, had taken a commanding lead in the poll by last night, the state-owned Zambia Daily Mail reported earlier today, citing results from 26 polling stations across five of the southern African nation's nine provinces. The Patriotic Front had won the vote at 23 of the polling stations, while the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy claimed one and the opposition United Democratic Alliance, headed by presidential candidate Hakainde Hichilema, garnered two. Election Monitors The Commonwealth Observer Group, which has two seven-member monitoring teams in Zambia, said the election seemed to be a ``significant improvement'' on the 2001 polls. ``Our teams will now observe the rest of the results process, so that we can assess if that phase as a whole has been conducted properly and therefore whether the outcome of the elections reflects the wishes of the people,'' group chairman, Paul Berenger, said in a statement distributed today in Lusaka. --With reporting by Nasreen Seria in Johannesburg. Editor: Griffiths.