Zambia : HH, UPND Favoured For First-round Win, New Analysis Shows

President Hakainde Hichilema is favoured to retain the presidency in Thursday’s general election, with the United Party for National Development handed a 70 to 80 percent chance of securing an outright first-round victory, a new pre-election analysis has found.

The briefing, titled Zambia’s 13 August General Election: Assessing the Route to the Presidency, puts the likelihood of a run-off at 15 to 25 percent. It is authored by Southern Africa Coalition for Democracy and Accountability executive director Blessing Vava and Masosote Institute for Political Economy director Tamuka Chirimambowa, and was published by the Public Affairs Research Institute in Africa on 8 August.

The analysis finds that Hichilema is favoured to cross the mandatory 50 percent threshold required to avoid a second round. It cautions, however, that the reasoning behind the projected outcome is not as simple as incumbent popularity.

“A first-round UPND victory is the most likely single outcome,” the briefing states.

Ballot access emerges as the clearest structural advantage identified in the report. UPND has fielded candidates in all 226 National Assembly constituencies, compared with 156 for the National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity. The ruling party is also contesting 115 of the 116 mayoral and council chairperson positions nationwide.

“Ballot access is the clearest measurable difference between the two campaigns. The UPND contested effectively every seat available. The NRPUP did not,” the report states. “The gap is not a matter of interpretation, it is recorded in the nomination returns, and it compounds downward, widest at ward level, where the machinery of election day actually sits.”

That gap widens further down the ballot. UPND has fielded candidates in wards countrywide, while NRPUP is contesting fewer than two-thirds of Zambia’s 1,858 wards.

The disparity matters beyond vote counting, the authors argue, because ward-level candidates are central to placing polling agents and monitoring the counting and aggregation of results on election day itself.

“The NRPUP’s decisive weakness is organisational rather than rhetorical,” the report says.

Opposition fragmentation stands out as the single biggest factor working in the incumbent’s favour, according to the analysis. Fourteen presidential candidates appear on Thursday’s ballot, splitting the anti-incumbent vote across a crowded field rather than consolidating it behind a single challenger.

Even so, the authors caution against reading the projected UPND victory as a sign of overwhelming popularity. The report points to an underlying anti-incumbent sentiment that persists among a segment of voters, suggesting the ruling party’s advantage rests more on organisational depth and opposition division than on broad public enthusiasm.

Zambians go to the polls this Thursday to elect a president, members of parliament and local government representatives.

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