Zambia's Big Election: Can the President Prove His Economic Fixes Are Working?
Zambians vote on August 13, 2026, in a national election that has become a test of whether President Hakainde Hichilema's economic changes have actually made life better for ordinary people. The Electoral Commission of Zambia has registered about 8.79 million voters. Fourteen candidates are running for president. Polling stations will be open from 06:00 to 18:00 local time (Electoral Commission of Zambia).
Hichilema leads the governing United Party for National Development (UPND) and is seeking a second term. His main challenger is Brian Mundubile, the candidate of the opposition Tonse Alliance, which is a group of opposition parties that have joined together behind one nominee. Having fourteen candidates in the race points to a divided opposition, and that usually helps an incumbent who has his party fully behind him. Analysts broadly expect Hichilema to win, according to Reuters, but the exact margin and whether a second round of voting is needed will depend on how many people turn out and how well the opposition unites around one alternative.
To win outright in Zambia, a presidential candidate needs more than half of all valid votes. If no one gets past that mark, the top two candidates go to a runoff — a second round of voting. This rule has historically encouraged parties to build large coalitions, and the Tonse Alliance coming together behind Mundubile fits that pattern. Presidential results are sent electronically to the National Results Centre in Lusaka, where they are announced but not formally declared, according to the Electoral Commission of Zambia's procedures.
The economy is at the center of this election. Inflation — the rate at which prices rise over time — fell to 6.8 percent in April, according to the Zambia Statistics Agency. That is a big improvement from the double-digit levels that hurt the early years of Hichilema's term. The country has seen an economic rebound, helped by high copper prices, after the government restructured its foreign debt — meaning it renegotiated the terms of what it owed to creditors (Reuters). Zambia is Africa's second-largest copper producer, and copper makes up about 70 percent of what the country earns from exports and more than 10 percent of its entire economy.
But even as the national economy improves, many people are still struggling. About 60 percent of Zambia's population lives below the national poverty line, according to Levy Ndou, a lecturer at Tshwane University of Technology. This gap between improving national numbers and ongoing hardship is what the election is really about. Hichilema's campaign argues that the benefits of his reforms are starting to show and just need more time to reach everyday citizens. The opposition argues that the recovery has helped only a narrow group and is not enough to justify another term.
Copper policy is a major part of the campaign and what comes after. The government wants to triple copper production, but the mining industry says that will require more electricity generation and tax incentives (Reuters). Because copper is the backbone of government revenue, investment, and jobs, any change in mining taxes, royalty fees (payments companies make to the government for extracting minerals), or energy policy after August 13 will affect far more than just the mining sector. Investors are watching whether a Hichilema second term would keep the current approach of careful spending and debt management or whether election pressure pushes him to loosen those policies.
The Electoral Commission has been preparing for months. It presented its 2026 General Election Roadmap and formally launched the process in July 2024. The commission then published its Final Register of Voters, broken down by polling station, and issued notices of validly nominated candidates for the presidency, mayoral races, council chairpersons, National Assembly members, and local councillors. Voters will be making choices across multiple levels of government at the same time, which means the results will shape not just the presidency but also the makeup of the legislature and local leadership.
The broader context here is one of a government that took over after the country had defaulted on its debt — meaning it could not repay what it owed — and has since renegotiated that debt, brought inflation under control, and benefited from rising copper prices. The question voters face is whether those achievements have made a real difference in their daily lives. With six in ten Zambians still living in poverty, the gap between the headline numbers and household reality is wide enough to keep the opposition competitive, even if it may not be wide enough to defeat an incumbent who can point to improving figures. The fifty-percent rule means that gap matters in a concrete way: if the opposition splits apart, Hichilema could win in the first round; if it holds together, the race gets much tighter.
Results are expected to be announced in the days after the vote, as electronic transmission to the National Results Centre proceeds. Whether the outcome is a first-round win or a runoff, the composition of the next National Assembly and the policy direction for copper expansion, debt management, and social spending will be shaped by what happens at the polls on Thursday.
