Zambia heads towards a pivotal election

FOR EDGAR LUNGU, Zambia’s president, elections on August 12th would seem to come at an inauspicious time. Over the six years since he took office in 2015, the economy has on average grown at a slower rate than the population. Last year Africa’s second-largest copper producer had its first recession since 1998. Inflation is at its highest level in 19 years. In July food prices were almost a third higher than a year before. In a poll published in May by Afrobarometer, a research group, more than three-quarters of Zambians said economic conditions were bad and that the country was heading in the wrong direction.