ECZ Missed Its Own 24 August Deadline, Says Legal Analysis

Legal Scholar Says ECZ’s Month-Long Delay In Publishing Full Election Results Threatens Transparency More than a month after Zambians voted in the 13 August general election, the Electoral Commission of Zambia has still not published the full official results as its own roadmap…

Legal Scholar Says ECZ’s Month-Long Delay In Publishing Full Election Results Threatens Transparency

More than a month after Zambians voted in the 13 August general election, the Electoral Commission of Zambia has still not published the full official results as its own roadmap for the poll had promised, according to an analysis by law professor Cephas Lumina.

Professor Lumina, writing in his regular legal affairs column, argued that the delay does not prove the election was invalid or that declared outcomes were wrong. He said, however, that measured against the Constitution, electoral legislation, the Commission’s own past practice and regional standards, the prolonged non-publication amounts to a serious and avoidable transparency problem at a moment when public confidence most needs strengthening.

He pointed to Article 45(2) of the Constitution, which requires the system administering elections to ensure not only free and fair elections but also independence, accountability, efficiency and transparency, alongside a simple and practical system of voting and tabulating votes. The ECZ, he noted, is a constitutional institution established under Article 229, mandated to implement the electoral process, conduct elections, regulate candidates and voters, and delimit boundaries, with Article 216 requiring it to remain independent, professional, non-partisan and impartial.

The scholar drew attention to the Commission’s own “Revised 2026 General Election – Roadmap,” which had fixed polling for 13 August, receipt and verification of results for 15 to 17 August, declaration for 17 August, and, separately, “Publication of Election Results” for the period 17 to 24 August 2026. Because the Commission itself treated declaration and publication as distinct stages, he argued, the fact that a winner was declared cannot on its own explain why the publication stage remains incomplete.

As of mid-September, Professor Lumina said, the ECZ’s General Election Results page still directs users to 2021 and 2016 results rather than 2026 publications, while pages on the Commission’s new 2026 results portal continue to display some constituencies as “Results Not Yet Received,” with zero votes recorded. He contrasted this with the 2021 and 2016 elections, when detailed results were published within roughly two weeks, noting that the current delay has gone well beyond both previous practice and the Commission’s own published 24 August deadline.

Professor Lumina cited a range of legal provisions requiring prompt publication, including Section 28 of the Electoral Process Act, which requires the ECZ to compile and publish an election timetable, and Section 117, which provides that where documents must be made available for inspection or copying, the Commission should endeavour to make them available electronically. Read together with sections 72 and 73, which require returning officers to announce and declare results as soon as they are received, he said this supports a clear expectation of prompt and accessible disclosure, even without a fixed universal deadline for every polling-station result.

The scholar acknowledged that the 2026 election process had both strengths and controversies. He noted that the Constitutional Court had dismissed legal challenges over the sequencing of constituency delimitation and voter registration, and had separately upheld the ECZ’s authority over nomination requirements, while the European Union observer mission had described candidate registration as inclusive, transparent and timely.

He was more critical of the Commission’s late guidance on ballot-marking, which he said blurred the distinction between the prescribed cross and other marks that could still indicate clear voter intention, and of the ECZ’s decision on 14 August to suspend counting and announcement of results nationwide. While the legal power to suspend counting existed under the Act, Professor Lumina said observers had questioned the transparency surrounding its exercise, with regional bodies recording the uncertainty and mistrust the pause created and pointing to procedural concerns during tabulation.

Comparative jurisprudence, he argued, is instructive here. Courts in Kenya have emphasised that transparency and verifiability require an auditable record connecting polling station, constituency and national totals, and while Kenya’s statutory scheme differs from Zambia’s, the underlying constitutional logic of verifiability remains relevant to Zambia’s own Article 45. He noted that international instruments, including the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance and the UN Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 25, similarly call for transparent, independently scrutinised electoral processes.

He called on the ECZ to urgently complete the unfinished transparency stage by publishing consolidated presidential, National Assembly, mayoral and councillor results with constituency-level statistics comparable to those published in 2016 and 2021, and by clearly identifying any corrections, re-votes or missing returns rather than leaving them to inference.

Professor Lumina said the episode also strengthens the case for a formal, inclusive review of the Commission’s institutional capacity, involving the ECZ, political parties, civil society, Parliament and electoral experts, though he stressed this need not prejudge the validity of the 2026 election itself. “Article 45 does not treat transparency as optional once ballots are counted,” he wrote, urging the Commission to publish the results in full and let the numbers be examined.