Saboi questions credibility of August election over missing Gen 20 forms

🇿🇲 BRIEFING | Saboi questions credibility of August election over missing Gen 20 forms NDC President and Orange Alliance member Saboi Imboela has questioned the credibility of Zambia’s August 2026 elections, arguing that the absence of Gen 20 forms at some polling stations weakened the system used by political parties to independently verify results. Speaking […]

🇿🇲 BRIEFING | Saboi questions credibility of August election over missing Gen 20 forms

NDC President and Orange Alliance member Saboi Imboela has questioned the credibility of Zambia’s August 2026 elections, arguing that the absence of Gen 20 forms at some polling stations weakened the system used by political parties to independently verify results.

Speaking on Crown TV, Imboela said the forms were central to following votes from polling stations through the wider tabulation process. “At polling stations we did not have the Gen 20 Forms, the documents which make an election to be credible, to be counted and followed through in terms of the process,” she said. “They abrogated it.”

Gen 20 forms provide a record of results from polling stations and, when signed by party agents, allow political parties and observers to compare figures recorded at polling-station level with results later tabulated and announced by the Electoral Commission of Zambia.

Imboela argued that where such records were unavailable, an important layer of verification was lost.

“So like that, they can’t have some of us saying they did the right thing or what happened was what was supposed to happen and therefore the elections were credible. I can’t say that,” she said. Imboela also questioned the presence of military personnel at some electoral locations, referring to an account she said had been given to her by a candidate who contested the election.

Her criticism adds to continuing opposition questions over the management of parts of the electoral process, particularly the availability of polling-station records and security deployments.

Election observers previously raised concerns about transparency during parts of the results process, while citizen monitors also called for greater access to polling-station documentation.

Those concerns, however, are separate from establishing whether identified procedural failures changed the overall presidential outcome.

Imboela said her central concern remained the ability to independently trace and verify the figures announced by ECZ. “Where is the body that is mandated to preside over the elections? Ultimately, I was on the ground,” she said.

Her argument is that without the underlying forms and established checks, she cannot personally describe the election as credible.

-The People’s Brief | Goran Handya