LUSAKA — The Christian Churches Monitoring Group urged Zambia's Electoral Commission to immediately publish all vote tallying records and images from its 13,529 polling stations to restore public confidence in the 2026 election results.
The demand follows the group's independent verification, which found that while President Hakainde Hichilema secured the presidency with over 50 percent of votes, official results in 30 constituencies were artificially inflated.
Father Francis Mukosa, CCMG chairperson, said the group deployed 1,500 stationary observers across a nationally representative sample of polling stations and received results from 1,491 of them, representing 99.4 percent of its sample.
"The PRVT estimates clearly show that President Hichilema received the most presidential votes and more than the 50 percent threshold," Mukosa said. "But it also demonstrates that, for 30 constituencies, votes were added, artificially increasing turnout and undermining the integrity of the process."
The group's Process and Results Verification for Transparency methodology estimated overall voter turnout at 53.5 percent with a margin of error of plus or minus 0.6 percent, marking a decrease from the 70.6 percent turnout in 2021. The Electoral Commission's official turnout of 57.23 percent falls outside the group's estimated range.
In the 30 problematic constituencies, the commission's official turnout was more than 10 percent above the group's upper estimate limit. In Lusangazi Central, for example, the group estimated turnout at 44 percent with a margin of error of plus or minus 8 percent, while the commission declared 66.4 percent turnout.
Further analysis showed that votes for the ruling United Party for National Development recorded at tally centers for 10 of 24 sampled polling stations did not align with results from those stations. Votes for the party were, on average, 178 votes greater at the tally centers than at the sampled stations.
The group concluded that the identified variances do not change the overall outcome of the presidential election. President Hichilema still cleared the 50 percent threshold required to avoid a runoff.
The Electoral Commission had announced President Hichilema's re-election with 60 percent of the vote, with opposition leader Brian Mundubile securing around 38 percent.
The monitoring group urged all political parties and candidates to pursue any grievances through established legal processes and called on courts to avoid dismissing claims based on technical grounds.
