Zambia’s electoral commission declared President Hakainde Hichilema the winner of a second five-year term, with 60% of the vote, the BBC reported on August 18. His closest challenger, Brian Mundubile, received 38%, while the other 12 candidates finished far behind.
Mundubile rejected the results as an inaccurate reflection of the election and said his party would pursue a legal challenge. He maintained that it possessed evidence and records of voting irregularities that would be presented through the available legal institutions. Those were opposition allegations, rather than findings established by the report.
The BBC also reported that Mundubile’s party said he had gone into hiding because of threats. Leading opposition figures had been arrested in a raid, with authorities accusing them of planning an insurrection; Mundubile called that accusation fabricated. Hichilema, first elected in 2021, thanked voters and described Zambia as a country that resolved differences through elections. The declaration thus delivered a formal electoral outcome while leaving a publicly contested dispute over the conduct of the vote.