By Michael Wahman* & Lindsay Favero*
Across southern Africa, sitting presidents have faced a wave of turnovers and electoral setbacks in the past few years.
Malawi and Botswana saw opposition victories. In Namibia and South Africa, incumbents were re-elected, but with significantly smaller majorities.
In Zambia, the Patriotic Front suffered a humiliating defeat in 2021 as voters reacted to poor economic performance. This resulted in a new government led by Hakainde Hichilema and his United Party for National Development.
Hichilema’s government has ruled in a time of extreme global economic anxieties. Conflict, supply chain interruptions and aid withdrawal have piled pressure on governments, not least in Africa. In southern Africa, erratic weather conditions have brought droughts, food insecurity and energy shortages, adding to economic woes. In this environment, how did Zambia’s incumbent party secure such a decisive re-election in 2026?
In an impressive showing, Hichilema secured an increased 61% of the vote compared to 38% for the main opposition challenger, Brian Mundubile. However, accusations of fraud and manipulation have tainted the election.
We are politics scholars who focus on democracy and elections in the region. We’ve been following developments in Zambia as the vote turned increasingly controversial.
In our view, however, it would be a mistake to understand the party’s victory as purely a reflection of manipulation. Other important factors contributed, including voter approval of the government’s handling of the economic crisis as well as education, healthcare and food security.
Was it fraud?
While many of us political scholars had anticipated a decisive victory for the United Party for National Development, academics Nic Cheeseman and Nicole Beardsworth published a remarkable article days after the election analysing voting patterns. The numbers were not adding up.
Election results announced by the Electoral Commission of Zambia showed improbably high voter turnout in many government-party strongholds. Even more suspicious were large and illogical differences in votes cast in parliamentary and presidential elections in some constituencies.
This was compounded by a highly unusual country-wide suspension of vote counting imposed by the electoral commission the day after the election, amid reports of violence. The European Union Election Observation Mission noted that the “overall conduct of tabulation (vote counting) deteriorated significantly” after the lifting of the suspension.
If fraud was indeed perpetrated inside ruling party strongholds, the critical question is whether it is decisive. Focusing only on 16 particularly suspicious constituencies, analysis found a difference of 170,000 votes between the number of presidential and parliamentary votes, but the nationwide vote difference was more than 1.1 million between the president and the opposition challenger.
Much more clarity came after the respected domestic election observer network, the Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG), published their regular Parallel Voting Tabulation survey. Indeed, the parallel results did not match the official results. It appears United Party for National Development votes were inflated.
Importantly, however, the monitoring group still had the party as the runaway winner in the presidential election. According to their survey, Hichilema received 56% of the vote (give or take 1.7 percentage points), compared to Mundubile’s 42%. In other words, manipulation does not seem to be enough to explain Hichilema’s decisive victory.
His party’s re-election was a reflection of both opposition weakness and government strength.
Opposition weakness
Throughout most of the presidential term, voters expected a re-match between Hichilema and former president Edgar Lungu. However, Lungu unexpectedly died just over a year before the election and the opposition was left without a leader.
Internal succession struggles within the Patriotic Front tore the party into factions. And the Registrar of Societies, which regulates political parties, frustrated attempts to register new political challengers. Polling voters after Lungu’s death, we did not find any opposition party with more than 12% declared support.
After dramatic nominations, Mundubile emerged as the main opposition candidate. He ran under the banner of a previously obscure opposition party, National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity. Mundubile’s strategy was to revitalise the former Patriotic Front coalition. In campaigns, he proudly declared that as president he would “rule like Lungu”.
This strategy may have been sound for uniting the opposition. However, to win national elections, emulating a coalition that voters soundly removed from office five years ago was not enough.
The final performance was nonetheless impressive for a party that was virtually nonexistent three months earlier. It won more votes than the government in most areas where the Patriotic Front dominated in 2021. It also made inroads among urban voters, a notoriously volatile voter group in Zambia.
However, the 2026 election reaffirms an old truth about Zambian politics: elections are won by mobilising the base and winning regional strongholds with big margins.
Given the apparently inflated votes in many of these strongholds, we need to treat official vote counts with a grain of salt. Nevertheless, some patterns are so clear that we can still draw some conclusions.
Mundubile’s party simply lacked the ground organisation needed to win. And the government was winning respectable shares of the vote in areas that were supposedly opposition strongholds.
Government strength
While we will probably never know the real voter turnout, independent estimates put it at around 54% of registered voters. In the last election, it was 71%.
In 2021, voters were highly motivated to vote and oust a highly unpopular government. This wasn’t the case in 2026.
Key to the government’s popularity is its strong handling of the economy. The government successfully restructured debt, kept inflation under control, and delivered steady growth. Voters credited government with stepping up drought initiatives to ease the suffering of rural Zambians.
Our poll showed strong approval of the government’s performance on education, healthcare and food security. Hichilema’s approval rating was measured at an unusually high 79%. His party’s campaign posters touted slogans such as “continuity”, a globally rare campaign message in days of anti-incumbent sentiment.
A weakening of democracy
A decisive victory leaves Hichilema with a strong mandate and a weakened opposition.
His party is now looking to gain a comfortable majority in parliament. This dominance was certainly helped by controversial constitutional changes instituted just ahead of the election. A new bill created new constituencies, expanded presidentially nominated seats, and introduced new seats for women, youth, and persons with disabilities. This aided the party.
It has also asserted stronger party discipline. The debate over the bill ignited infighting, but the election seemed to settle the contest. Hichilema took a hard line against MPs who voted against it. He now leads an increasingly unified and loyal party.
However, the election is not settled and leaves many questions unanswered. The opposition intends challenging the results in the Constitutional Court. Crucially, they will have to show that manipulation changed the outcome. While it will be hard to argue it did, it looks like it may have affected the proportional distribution of parliamentary seats.
Generally, the election has weakened Zambia’s democratic credentials in an environment where western pressure to protect democratic institutions is weaker than it has been in decades.
Not only did the election itself raise questions, but also a mysterious security operation the day after. This targeted opposition officials, including Mundubile. It left one person dead and several more detained. It raises serious human rights concerns.
This will be Hichilema’s last term, and the battle over who succeeds him is likely to begin soon. How his party uses its new dominance, whether to manage succession or to change the rules to consolidate its position further, will shape Zambian politics in the years to come.
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* Professor, Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin
* PhD Student, Michigan State University
