Zambian president wins re-election in turbulent vote
Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema has won a second term, results showed on Tuesday, after a tumultuous election that saw his main challenger mount an unexpectedly strong showing and vow to contest the outcome.
Hichilema took around 60 percent of the vote, similar to his score at the 2021 polls when he won his first five-year term, the electoral commission said.
His closest challenger was leader of the main opposition NRPUP party and former government minister Brian Mundubile, who scored around 38 percent.
While Thursday's vote was largely peaceful, the opposition said intimidation and restrictions marred its campaign, concerns echoed by international election observers, including the European Union.
"We will now place that evidence before the appropriate legal institutions and pursue every lawful avenue available to us within the prescribed period," Mundubile said in a statement.
"We will ask the necessary questions. We will demand the necessary answers and we will defend the votes entrusted to us."
The NRPUP earlier told AFP the 55-year-old was "in a secure location under the protection of an international human rights body due to threats made against him".
Police were still holding several figures from the main opposition alliance, arrested last week on rejected allegations of involvement in militia or insurgent activity.
'Tough competition'
Hichilema is due to be sworn in within seven days of the commission publishing the official results, due by August 24, but the planned challenge could delay the process.
In his first address after being declared the winner, the 64-year-old called his victory a "serious show of confidence" and extended an olive branch to his opponents' supporters.
"There is no winner here, there is no loser. We are all winners. Zambia is the winner," Hichilema said, while conceding the "competition was tough".
"Even though you didn't vote for us, that's your choice. Our job is to continue working for you, so you can next time vote for the UPND," he said, referring to the ruling party.
Earlier, UPND supporters poured onto the streets of the capital Lusaka after the results were announced, singing and dancing in celebration.
Hichilema entered the race as the clear favourite after steering Zambia through a major economic turnaround and restructuring its debt.
He restored ties with international lenders and courted millions of dollars in investment, particularly 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.
Mundubile entered the presidential race only in May, backed by a newly forged opposition alliance.
Militias
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 papers.
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 related conduct whatsoever".
A parliamentarian was struck when shots were fired in a raid on the opposition leader's home, Mundubile said. The MP's 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".
"We should not allow our country to degenerate into bands of armed militias. At that point, that's crossing the line," Hichilema said Tuesday.
Zambia, Africa's second-largest copper producer, has a long record of peaceful transfers of power through the ballot box, with every change of president since the return to multiparty politics in 1991 achieved through elections.