VOTE ANALYSIS | Margins Now Telling the Story

🇿🇲 VOTE ANALYSIS | Margins Now Telling the Story Twenty-seven of Zambia’s 226 constituencies are now in the official presidential tally, and the emerging numbers offer something more useful than simply saying who is ahead. They are beginning to show how Hakainde Hichilema and Brian Mundubile are constructing very different routes through the electoral map. […]

🇿🇲 VOTE ANALYSIS | Margins Now Telling the Story

Twenty-seven of Zambia’s 226 constituencies are now in the official presidential tally, and the emerging numbers offer something more useful than simply saying who is ahead. They are beginning to show how Hakainde Hichilema and Brian Mundubile are constructing very different routes through the electoral map.

From the consolidated figures supplied from the 27 constituencies, Hichilema has 243,509 votes against Mundubile’s 161,883, giving the incumbent an advantage of 81,626 votes. Among the two leading candidates alone, this works out at roughly 60.1 percent for Hichilema and 39.9 percent for Mundubile.

This is not a national projection. Only 27 constituencies have been announced, and constituencies carry different numbers of voters. But the internal distribution is revealing.

Southern Province is producing extraordinary margins for Hichilema. In Dundumwezi, the result was 22,043 to 46. Kalomo South returned 23,802 to 83, Magoye East 19,738 to 148, and Monze East 22,523 to 429. Across these four constituencies alone, Hichilema collected 88,106 votes against Mundubile’s 706, producing a net advantage of 87,400 votes.

That number deserves attention. Hichilema’s overall lead across all 27 announced constituencies is 81,626. In other words, the net advantage generated from just those four Southern constituencies is larger than his entire current lead. Remove those four from the consolidated figures and the remaining 23 constituencies would leave Mundubile narrowly ahead, 161,177 to 155,403, a difference of 5,774 votes.

This does not mean Hichilema is surviving on Southern Province alone. Far from it. His other margins are also significant. Mufwashi in North-Western returned 10,512 against Mundubile’s 564. Mumbwa Central in Central Province produced 18,225 against 1,923. Chongwe East in Lusaka gave Hichilema 17,114 against Mundubile’s 8,807.

What it demonstrates is how heavily the national arithmetic can be influenced by the size of victories rather than simply the number of constituencies won.

Mundubile, meanwhile, is showing a recognisable consolidation of former PF territory. In Luapula, he has won the announced constituencies of Luongo 6,349-3,536, Kalungwishi 9,519-5,013, Mambilima 8,425-4,309 and Mwansabombwe 11,812-4,456. Northern Province is competitive but currently favours him in the announced Saise and Mbala Central results, 5,793-4,921 and 7,930-6,629, respectively.

The Copperbelt results announced in this sample also favour Mundubile. He took Konkola 9,983-7,458, Kankoyo 9,332-4,684 and Kantanshi 12,547-6,945. The important detail, however, is Hichilema’s share. These are not Southern Province-style wipeouts in reverse. In Konkola, for example, Mundubile’s advantage is only 2,525 votes. In Kantanshi it is 5,602.

These are useful opposition margins, but they must eventually be measured against the enormous surpluses Hichilema is collecting elsewhere.

Eastern Province is perhaps the clearest evidence of fragmentation. Mundubile won Nyimba North 8,475-2,885, Malambo East 9,074-6,191, Chipangali West 7,862-3,353 and Malambo West 8,088-5,724. But Hichilema took Chadiza East 6,574-4,505 and Chadiza West 8,027-7,411. Eastern therefore looks competitive beneath the headline of who eventually carries the province.

Hichilema is collecting thousands of votes even where Mundubile wins, while also taking some constituencies himself.

Central Province is similarly important. Mundubile won Chitambo 8,390-6,371, a relatively competitive result. Hichilema then won Mumbwa Central 18,225-1,923. Mundubile gained 2,019 votes over Hichilema in Chitambo. Hichilema gained 16,302 over Mundubile in Mumbwa Central. Again, the electoral lesson lies in the margin.

This begins to explain how a candidate could eventually win Northern, Luapula, Muchinga, Eastern, Copperbelt and possibly even Lusaka, but still face difficulty winning the presidency. Zambia does not award one point for each province. Every valid presidential vote enters the national total. Winning six provinces 55-45 can be less valuable than winning three provinces 90-10 while remaining competitive elsewhere.

For Mundubile, the route is therefore becoming clearer. Winning former PF territory may not be enough. He needs large margins there. He must also reduce Hichilema’s extraordinary advantage across Southern, Western and North-Western, while performing strongly enough in Lusaka and Copperbelt to generate substantial numerical surpluses.

Hichilema’s route looks different. He can afford to lose some former PF provinces if he continues collecting meaningful shares inside them. His strategy becomes particularly powerful if those losses remain within ranges such as 9,983-7,458 in Konkola or 7,930-6,629 in Mbala Central, while his own strongholds continue producing results such as 22,043-46 or 23,802-83.

This is also why the next constituencies from Lusaka and Copperbelt will matter enormously. If Mundubile wins the urban vote decisively, his national path strengthens. If those provinces remain competitive and Hichilema continues winning peripheral and rural constituencies, the opposition will need increasingly large numbers from Northern, Muchinga, Luapula and Eastern to compensate.

There is still far too much of Zambia outstanding to call the race. Twenty-seven constituencies represent only about 12 percent of the 226 constituencies, and constituency count is not equivalent to percentage of votes cast. Large urban constituencies still to come can move the national numbers quickly.

But one pattern is already difficult to ignore.

Mundubile is winning important territory. Hichilema is winning enormous margins.

The next stage of the count will tell us whether Mundubile can turn his victories into sufficiently large vote surpluses, or whether Hichilema can continue losing competitively outside his base while accumulating overwhelming numbers inside it.

© The People’s Brief | Ollus R. Ndomu; Chileshe Sengwe