Zambia's Hichilema Wins Second Term Amid Observer Concerns
Zambia’s president, Hakainde Hichilema, won a second term, the electoral commission said, taking about 61 per cent of the vote against 38 per cent for his main challenger, Brian Mundubile. International observers, including the European Union, said the vote was largely peaceful but took place in an environment that “limited fundamental freedoms”, citing late legal changes and unequal campaign conditions. The result gives him another five-year mandate.
Mr Hichilema, who took office in 2021 after years in opposition, secures another five years to press an economic recovery in a copper-dependent country that recently emerged from a landmark debt restructuring. The observers’ concerns, over rushed legal changes and a tilted playing field, echo a wider pattern across the region, where incumbents increasingly bend the rules of the contest without openly breaking them. For Zambia, long seen as one of Africa’s more stable democracies, the critique reads as a caution rather than a crisis. Watch whether the opposition mounts a legal challenge and how Mr Hichilema handles the debt-and-copper economy in his second term.