Hichilema secures second term as ECZ completes count across all 226 constituencies

Hakainde Hichilema has won a second term as President of Zambia, the Electoral Commission of Zambia confirmed in the early hours of Tuesday, after a count that ran through the night and covered all 226 parliamentary constituencies. ECZ Chairperson Mwangala Zaloumis announced…

Hakainde Hichilema has won a second term as President of Zambia, the Electoral Commission of Zambia confirmed in the early hours of Tuesday, after a count that ran through the night and covered all 226 parliamentary constituencies.

ECZ Chairperson Mwangala Zaloumis announced the outcome at the National Election Results Centre in Lusaka, confirming that the president had polled more than 2.9 million valid votes, comfortably above the 50 percent threshold needed to avoid a run-off against his closest challenger, Brian Mundubile. A handful of constituencies remained to be formally confirmed at the time, but the Commission said the outcome was settled regardless.

The final tranche of results feeding into that outcome, 34 constituencies spanning nine provinces, showed a country split along familiar lines. Hichilema recorded commanding margins across Western and North-Western provinces, winning constituencies such as Luena, Mushindamo and Senanga North by wide margins, with turnout above 80 percent in several of them. In parts of Lusaka and the Copperbelt, the picture flipped, with Mundubile of the Tonse Pamodzi Alliance carrying seats including Chawama, Mandevu, Munali and Kwacha, in some cases by very wide margins.

A handful of contests were far tighter. Lusaka Central was decided by roughly a thousand votes, and Chimwemwe on the Copperbelt and Matero in Lusaka were similarly close. These narrow margins sat alongside urban turnout that ran well below rural levels throughout the count, with several Lusaka seats recording turnout in the mid-to-high 30s.

Eleven other candidates appeared on every ballot paper read out during the final session, though none came close to winning a constituency outright. Harry Kalaba of Citizens First and Fred M’membe of the Socialist Party posted their strongest showings in Copperbelt towns including Nkana and Kwacha, while Given Katuta, the sole independent and only woman among the fourteen original candidates, drew her largest support in Matero.

Commissioners Zevyanji Sinkala, McDonald Chipenzi and Ndiyoi Mutiti shared the reading of the final batch, with Zaloumis closing that session by thanking stakeholders for their patience through what she called a lengthy overnight process. She returned hours later to confirm the president-elect.

Officially, the result makes Hichilema the victor. Beyond the numbers, the scale of the exercise, 226 constituencies across nine provinces counted and read out without major disruption, is itself being read in Lusaka as evidence that the process held. Whichever way any single constituency voted, the country goes into this new term having completed that count together.

The win extends Hichilema’s tenure that began in 2021 into a second five-year term. It closes out a presidential race that had been widely framed as a two-way contest between the incumbent and the Tonse Pamodzi Alliance’s candidate, with the remaining eleven contenders splitting a smaller share of the vote nationally.

Zambians cast their ballots on polling day earlier this month in an election that also determined seats in the newly expanded 226-constituency National Assembly, the first poll conducted under the redrawn constituency map introduced last year. Parliamentary outcomes for those 226 directly elected seats are expected from the Commission in the coming hours.