LUSAKA — Hakainde Hichilema won re-election as Zambia's president on Aug. 13, 2026, capturing roughly 60 percent of the vote, the Electoral Commission of Zambia announced, extending his United Party for National Development government's hold on the southern African nation for a second five-year term.
With 71 percent of constituencies reporting as of Monday, Hichilema held 62 percent of the counted vote. In raw figures, he had accumulated 1,544,140 votes against 1,030,662 for his closest challenger, Brian Mundubile of the National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity, which served as the electoral vehicle for the opposition Tonse Alliance.
Voter turnout stood at 56.4 percent, well below the roughly 70 percent recorded in Zambia's 2021 general election. The drop is notable in a country that has held multiparty elections since the early 1990s, and critics of Hichilema's government said the campaign environment was too controlled to encourage broad participation.
Mundubile, a member of parliament, was selected as the Tonse Alliance's presidential candidate on Jan. 28, 2026, after the alliance's original choice collapsed. Former president Edgar Lungu had been announced as the coalition's chairman and presidential candidate after the Patriotic Front and several opposition parties formed the Tonse Alliance in November 2024, but a court ruling declared Lungu ineligible to stand on Dec. 10, 2024. Lungu died in 2025. Mundubile ran with Makebi Zulu as his vice-presidential candidate.
In May 2026, the alliance settled on the NRPUP as the registered party through which Mundubile would contest the presidency. The choice reflected a procedural necessity: the Tonse grouping is a coalition, not a registered party, so it required an affiliated party to place its candidate on the ballot.
Hichilema ran with incumbent Vice President Mutale Nalumango and was nominated unopposed at the UPND's party convention on April 12, 2026. He drew endorsements from multiple partners within the broader UPND Alliance, including Nevers Mumba, leader of the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy, who backed Hichilema in October 2024, and Highvie Hamududu, leader of the Party of National Unity and Progress, who followed in November 2024. Alliance chairperson Charles Milupi, Leslie Chikuse of the Republican Progressive Party, Ezra Ngulube of the National Restoration Party and Felix Mutati of the Movement for Democratic Change also declared support.
A third presidential contender, Harry Kalaba of the Citizens First party, ran under the CF Orange Alliance banner. Altogether, 13 opposition candidates competed against Hichilema, making this one of the more crowded presidential fields in Zambia's recent electoral history.
The election was held under a new constitutional framework for the National Assembly. Amendments ratified in 2025 replaced the previous 156-seat first-past-the-post system with a mixed-member majoritarian structure. Under the new system, 226 members are elected from single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post, and an additional 40 seats are filled by proportional representation tied to the presidential vote. Of those 40 proportional seats, 20 are reserved for women, 15 for youth and five for persons with disabilities. The president retains the power to appoint up to 11 further members. The vice president, Speaker and first and second deputy speakers also hold seats as ex officio members, expanding the total chamber size considerably from the previous configuration.
The presidential race uses a two-round system: if no candidate clears 50 percent of valid votes in the first round, the top two finishers advance to a runoff. Hichilema's margin, if it holds at roughly 60 percent, clears that threshold and makes a second round unnecessary.
Critics alleged the campaign was tightly managed by Hichilema's administration, though the specific complaints lodged—over media access, state resources or administrative conduct—were not detailed in the commission's vote-count announcements. Zambia's opposition has raised similar concerns in previous cycles, and the country's elections have drawn international observer missions that have at times noted restrictions alongside competitive elements.
The minimum voting age for the Aug. 13 election was 18; candidates for the National Assembly were required to be at least 21. The election covered not just the presidency and parliament but also councillors and council chairs across Zambia's local government structure, making it a comprehensive nationwide vote at all levels of government.
