Mapping the Zambia 2016 Presidential Election Results

We finally got our hands on the most recent Shapefiles [1]. Also, a few weeks back, we got our hands on the official Electoral Commission of Zambia presidential election results [2] and did some really basic analysis. So we decided to visualise the results. No commentary here, just maps… and more maps.

While we have opinions of our, we are neither formally qualified nor trained for that. That being said, one can easily notice interesting regional voting patterns. And it does not matter how deep one drills, save for regions like Central and Lusaka province. Incidentally, we have, in the more recent past, visualised presidential election results from previous elections [3, 4, 5].

Mapping the Presidential Election Results

Historical Voting Patterns: 1991–2016

1991 Zambia Presidential Election Results: Winners by Constituency

1991 Zambia Presidential Election Results: Winners by Constituency
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2016 Party Vote Distribution by Constituency

2016 Zambia Presidential Election Results: PF Vote Distribution

2016 Zambia Presidential Election Results: PF Vote Distribution
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2016 Voting Pattern by Constituency

2016 Zambia Presidential Election Results by Constituencies: Central Province

2016 Zambia Presidential Election Results by Constituencies: Central Province
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2016 Voting Pattern by District

2016 Zambia Presidential Election Results by Districts: Central Province

2016 Zambia Presidential Election Results by Districts: Central Province
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Data feeds

Administrative boundaries have changed. New districts and constituencies were created. In addition, there were a few name changes. Please see the Electoral Commission of Zambia Website [6].

Scripting

  • Data analysis was done using LibreOffice Calc
  • Maps were created using R with packages below.
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library(maptools)
if (!require(gpclib)) install.packages("gpclib", type="source")
gpclibPermit()
require(raster)
require(RColorBrewer)
require("TeachingDemos") # for subplot
require(ggmap)
require(sqldf)
require(stringi)
require(extrafont)
:
:
  • Scripts and higher resolution images (SVG) and other formats are available on GitHub [7]. We also dump maps on Wikimedia Commons [8] as we do a fair amount of editing on Wikipedia.

Concluding remarks

  • If you are formally qualified to do a commentary or have opinions of your own, please do comment below: it is one of the reasons we share such content.
  • Also, if you would want to see data visualised in a different way, please do comment.

Bibliography

[1] https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-online/reference/shapefiles.htm
[2] https://www.elections.org.zm/general_election_2016.php
[3] http://lightonphiri.org/blog/visualising-the-zambia-2015-presidential-by-election-results
[4] http://lightonphiri.org/blog/historical-regional-voting-pattern-in-past-zambia-presidential-elections
[5] http://lightonphiri.org/blog/mapping-the-zambia-2011-elections-results-using-google-fusion-tables
[6] http://elections.org.zm
[7] https://github.com/lightonphiri/misc-project-wikipedia
[8] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:ListFiles/Lightonphiri