Hichilema declared winner with 60.49% as rigging claims and disputed raid on Mundubile’s home persist

The Electoral Commission of Zambia has confirmed Hakainde Hichilema as winner of the presidential election, with final consolidated results from all 226 constituencies showing him taking 2,965,326 votes, or 60.49 percent, against 1,856,217 votes, or 37.87 percent, for…

The Electoral Commission of Zambia has confirmed Hakainde Hichilema as winner of the presidential election, with final consolidated results from all 226 constituencies showing him taking 2,965,326 votes, or 60.49 percent, against 1,856,217 votes, or 37.87 percent, for challenger Brian Mundubile. The declaration, made in the early hours of Tuesday, comes as the president’s main rival disputes the fairness of the count and describes an armed raid on his home days earlier that remains the subject of sharply conflicting accounts.

The result clears the 50-percent-plus-one threshold of 2,451,026 votes by a margin of 514,300, out of 4,902,050 valid votes cast nationally. Eleven other candidates shared the remaining 80,507 votes, with Citizens First’s Harry Kalaba the closest of them on 19,070, followed by Zambia Must Prosper’s Kelvin Fube Bwalya on 17,078 and Socialist Party leader Fred M’membe on 12,194. None of the eleven cleared even half a percent of the national vote individually.

Mundubile has not accepted the outcome quietly. He has said his party received information about the possible alteration of results forms at polling stations and has called for an independent investigation into the count. Hichilema’s camp has rejected that claim, maintaining the process was conducted properly.

The dispute over the vote count sits alongside a separate and more serious set of allegations concerning an incident at Mundubile’s Kabulonga residence on the night of 14 August. Mundubile says heavily armed personnel he believed to be Zambia Army soldiers forced entry into the property, fired shots, and that he personally witnessed former Lunte MP Mutotwe Kafwaya shot at close range. He has since said he was “reliably informed” that Kafwaya and his bodyguard, Richard Banda, died from their injuries, though he has acknowledged he was not present for their treatment.

The government disputes this account in full. Ministry of Defence Permanent Secretary Maambo Hamaundu said there is no record of Kafwaya being admitted to Maina Soko Military Hospital, describing the shooting claim as “a total fabrication” intended to alarm the public during the results count. Information and Media Permanent Secretary Thabo Kawana separately dismissed a related claim that Patrick Mwansa, husband of former MP Tasila Lungu, had been shot dead, calling it social media speculation.

Cabinet Secretary Patrick Kangwa has said the operation at Mundubile’s residence was linked to concerns about an alleged militia and undisclosed weapons on the property. Mundubile has categorically rejected that characterisation, saying his party has no links to any armed group and calling on Kangwa to withdraw the allegation or allow any evidence to be tested through due process.

No independent confirmation of Kafwaya’s condition, or of his and Banda’s reported deaths, has been established. Family members have said they have not been able to locate or reach Kafwaya since the incident, and have appealed publicly for information on his whereabouts.

Zambia has also seen extensive social media activity during the count alleging vote manipulation, much of it unverified. Some of these claims describe specific instances of tampering with results forms; others are broader assertions of security-force involvement in the count. None of this material has been independently substantiated at the time of writing, and both the Commission and government officials have urged the public not to treat unverified claims as fact while the process concludes.

Under Zambian electoral law, candidates have a window to formally petition the outcome of a presidential election, and Mundubile’s party has signalled it is considering that route rather than accepting the declared result outright.

The disputed raid and the rigging allegations have drawn attention from regional observers already present in the country as part of election monitoring missions. Parliamentary results for the newly expanded 226-seat National Assembly are still being finalised, with the Commission expected to release those figures in the coming hours.