The PF won only one seat, raising questions whether President Michael Sata's policy of encouraging defections from the opposition to boost the ruling party's ranks has backfired. Three of the by-elections were due to defections from the opposition Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) to the PF. Since assuming power in 2011, the PF has pursued a policy of enticing opposition MPs with various incentives to cross the floor in its bid to secure a parliamentary majority. In this round, however, it only won one of the three seats that became vacant through its covert tactics.
The largest and somewhat unlikely beneficiary was the United Party for National Development (UPND), which won two seats, one for the first time in the densely-populated Copperbelt Province. It won another in the North-West.The PF only wrestled a seat previously held by the MMD in Central Zambia.The ruling party was comprehensively beaten in the crucial seat of Chipata - the capital of the Eastern Province. The MMD polled 8,186 against 5,913 votes for the PF to retain the seat it lost through a petition. The PF had invested considerably in the campaign with the aim of wrestling the provincial capital away from the opposition. But it turned out to be mission impossible.
