Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has won a second term, according to election results re-leased Tuesday that gave him a convincing victory in polls marred by claims of irregularities and a raid on the opposition.
While voting in Thursday’s election in the copper-rich southern African nation was largely peace-ful, the opposition said its campaign had suffered from intimidation and restrictions on its activi-ties, concerns echoed by observers.
Police were still holding several figures from the main opposition alliance, arrested last week on rejected allegations of involvement in militia or insurgent activity.
The leader of the main opposition NRPUP party, former government minister Brian Mundubile, is “in a secure location under the protection of an international human rights body due to threats made against him,” the group told AFP.
Mundubile, 55, won around 38 percent of the vote, according to election commission results re-leased early Tuesday.
Hichilema took around 60 percent, similar to his score at the 2021 polls when he won his first five-year term.
The 64-year-old is due to be sworn in seven days after the commission publishes the official re-sults, which is due by August 24, and if they are not challenged.
Supporters of his UPND party poured onto the streets of the capital Lusaka after the results were announced, singing and dancing in celebration.
Hichilema said in a statement: “We are truly humbled by the trust you have placed in our hands.”
“To those citizens who preferred the ideas presented by our opponents, we hear you, and we will continue to work for you,” he said.
“Now we must work harder than ever before to deliver meaningful development for every single Zambian, in every corner of our country.”
– Clear favourite –
Hichilema entered the race as the clear favourite after steering Zambia through a major econom-ic turnaround and restructuring its debt.
He restored ties with international lenders and courted millions of dollars in investment, partic-ularly in the valuable copper industry.
But while inflation has eased, the economic gains have not been felt evenly for the more than 70 percent of the population which lives on less than $3 a day, according to World Bank data.
His first term was marked by concerns over Zambia’s political space, with opposition parties and civil society groups accusing his government of curbing dissent.
International observers said the poll was marred by opposition claims of intimidation, including by security forces, and an uneven playing field in which state-owned media coverage was heavily biased in favour of the ruling party.
They also criticised the election commission’s suspension of vote counting for around six hours on Friday following reports of violence against polling staff and the alleged theft of ballot pa-pers.
– Claims of irregularities –
Mundubile’s NRPUP on Monday angrily rejected with “absolute disdain” government claims that its supporters in police custody were involved in “any insurgency, militia activity or any re-lated conduct whatsoever”.
A parliamentarian was struck when shots were fired in the raid, Mundubile said. His condition was unknown.
A cabinet statement alleged on Sunday that some of those arrested were connected to “military plans involving foreign nationals and illegal military training camps, thus posing a serious threat to State security”.
Officials have not commented on the case since then.
Mundubile also alleged on Monday there had been irregularities in the counting, claiming — without providing evidence — that documents listing the results had been tampered with.
Zambia, Africa’s second-largest copper producer, has a long record of peaceful transfers of pow-er through the ballot box, with every change of president since the return to multiparty politics in 1991 achieved through elections.–Net
