Hichilema wins a second term in Zambia as his rival rejects the count

In the early hours of Tuesday 18 August 2026, after four days of counting, Zambia’s electoral commission declared President Hakainde Hichilema the winner of the presidential election, giving him a second five-year term without the need for a run-off.

Hichilema, 64, received 2,965,326 votes, or 61.4% of about 5 million cast in the 13 August poll, the Associated Press reported, citing the commission. His closest rival, Brian Mundubile, took 1,856,217 votes, about 38%. “I therefore declare, Hichilema Hakainde S, to be president-elect of the Republic of Zambia this 18th day of August, 2026,” said the commission’s chairperson, Mwangala Zaloumis. Five of the country’s 226 constituencies had still not been tallied when she spoke; she said the outstanding results were not expected to change the outcome materially.

A tense count

The count did not go smoothly. The commission suspended the count on the Friday after the vote and resumed it hours later under heavier security, saying that some polling-station officials had been attacked and some ballot papers stolen.

Overnight after the vote the authorities arrested 11 people, among them prominent opposition figures, in a raid on a property where Mundubile was present. The government said the operation was aimed at militia activity and that those detained had military-grade weapons intended for an armed insurrection. Mundubile gave a different account: he said armed personnel broke through the gate of his home with an armoured vehicle and opened fire, and he described the raid as an attack on his life. A former cabinet minister, Mutotwe Kafwaya, was shot and killed during the operation, the AFP news agency reported.

Mundubile, a 55-year-old lawyer and former minister standing for president for the first time, alleged that results recorded at polling stations did not match the figures announced as they were collated, and called for an independent investigation. Hichilema’s camp rejected the allegations.

What observers said

International observers, including a mission from the European Union, said the election was largely peaceful but that the wider process “took place in an environment that limited fundamental freedoms.” Michael McNamara, who led the EU mission, said: “Late legal changes, legal uncertainty, and unequal campaign conditions distorted the playing field.” Zambia’s Catholic bishops, in a pastoral statement, voiced concern about the deployment of the army during the count.

The vote was widely seen as a judgment on Hichilema’s handling of the economy. Zambia, Africa’s second-largest copper producer and a country of about 22 million people, defaulted on its debt in 2020. Hichilema, who won office in 2021 at his sixth attempt, oversaw the restructuring of that debt, brought inflation down and stabilised the currency. His opponent campaigned on the cost of living, arguing that the improvement in the national accounts had not reached ordinary households.

In a statement after the declaration, Hichilema thanked voters and addressed those who had not supported him. “To those citizens who preferred the ideas presented by our opponents, we hear you,” he said.

Every change of president in Zambia since the return of multiparty politics in 1991 has come through an election, and rights groups and observers said the dispute had damaged the country’s democratic reputation.