Zambia's President Wins a Second Term — But the Election Was Anything but Smooth
Zambia's Electoral Commission has declared President Hakainde Hichilema the winner of the 2026 presidential election with roughly 60 percent of the votes, giving him a second term Al Jazeera. This was his seventh time running for president. His main challenger, Brian Mundubile, received roughly 38 percent. The vote took place on August 13.
Getting to the final result was a bumpy ride. On August 14, the Electoral Commission of Zambia paused vote-counting for several hours after reports that polling staff were attacked and ballot papers were stolen Al Jazeera. Counting resumed after the temporary halt BBC. As results came in, Hichilema held a strong lead: with 71 percent of voting areas reporting, the commission placed him at nearly 62 percent Al Jazeera. Earlier figures from Reuters on August 16 had shown him at 54.82 percent (1,056,812 ballots) with the same share of areas reporting, already enough to avoid a second round of voting Reuters.
The night of the vote also saw a dramatic incident. Authorities arrested 11 people, including leading opposition figures, in a raid that involved gunfire. Brian Mundubile was present at the time Al Jazeera. The circumstances of the raid and the fact that it happened near Mundubile add tension to an already disputed election.
Mundubile, running for president for the first time, is not accepting the result. He says he received information that results forms from polling stations may have been altered, and he is calling for an urgent independent investigation Al Jazeera. The claims of fraud have not yet been proven by outside sources. But the combination of an armed raid, stolen ballots, and a halted vote count will draw close attention from election observers both inside and outside Zambia.
Hichilema faced 13 challengers in total, with Mundubile the main one BBC. In Zambia, a presidential candidate needs more than 50 percent of the votes to win outright, without needing a second-round vote. Hichilema's roughly 60 percent clears that bar comfortably.
For Hichilema, this win completes a long journey. He lost six previous runs for the presidency, including a narrow defeat in 2016 when Edgar Lungu of the Patriotic Front won 1,860,877 votes to Hichilema's 1,760,347 Electoral Commission of Zambia. He finally won the presidency in 2021 and has now secured a second term.
The broader context here is about Zambia's reputation. Zambia has long been seen as one of the more stable democracies in southern Africa, with several peaceful handovers of power between parties. The disruptions of this election put that reputation to the test. Whether the Electoral Commission's response and Hichilema's comfortable margin will be enough to quiet the controversy depends partly on whether Mundubile's call for an independent investigation is taken up by trusted institutions inside Zambia or by international partners. The coming weeks will show whether Zambia's courts and dispute processes handle the challenge through constitutional channels, or whether the cracks revealed during the count grow wider.
