Zambian police arrested several leading opposition figures on the night of national elections last week, accusing them of posing \u200ba threat to state security, the government said.<\/p>\n
Votes were still \u200cbeing counted on Monday from Thursday’s\u00a0presidential and parliamentary elections, with partial results showing President Hakainde Hichilema\u00a0in the lead.<\/p>\n
The election is widely seen as a test of \u200bwhether Hichilema’s economic gains since a pandemic-era debt crisis \u200bare enough to win him a second term in the \u2060major copper producer.<\/p>\n
His main rival, opposition leader Brian Mundubile, said \u200bheavily armed personnel had raided his residence after the election in what \u200bhe described as an attack on his life.<\/p>\n
The government said in a statement released late on Sunday that Mundubile had been at the scene when 11 \u200bpeople were apprehended, and that shots had been fired from the \u200bpremises at law enforcement agents, resulting in an exchange of fire.<\/p>\n
It said individuals \u200chad \u2060been found “in possession of high-grade military weapons, ammunition and other materials for use in armed insurrection” and that they had been under surveillance for months.<\/p>\n
The government named six people who it said were in \u200bcustody, including a \u200bspokesperson for Mundubile. \u2060The others arrested were “senior members of certain political parties in Zambia,” the statement said.<\/p>\n
Opposition representatives had \u200bbeen calling for the safe return of some members \u200bof Mundubile’s \u2060inner circle who they said had been detained or had disappeared.<\/p>\n
Opposition parties and civil society groups accused the government of growing repression in \u2060the \u200blead-up to the election, including placing restrictions \u200bon their meetings and campaign activities. The government has denied the accusations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zambian police arrested several leading opposition figures on the night of national elections last week, accusing them of posing \u200ba threat to state security, the government said. Votes were still \u200cbeing counted on Monday from Thursday’s\u00a0presidential and parliamentary elections, with partial results showing President Hakainde Hichilema\u00a0in the lead. The election is widely seen as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":21782,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":12,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2362,33,30],"tags":[5293,394],"class_list":["post-21781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","category-politics","category-southern-africa","tag-brian-mundubile","tag-zambia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21783,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21781\/revisions\/21783"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}