HICHILEMA DECLARED PRESIDENT-ELECT AFTER SECURING SECOND TERM

By Ennie Kishiki Mutepuka.

Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) Chairperson Mwangala Zaloumis, has declared Hakainde Hichilema President-Elect after he secured 2,965,326 votes in the 2026 General Election.

The declaration gives Hichilema a second consecutive term in office after he defeated his closest challenger, National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity (NRPUP) presidential candidate Brian Mundubile.

Mr. Mundubile, mounted a spirited challenge during the campaign period, with the NRPUP emerging as a significant opposition force despite being a relatively new political formation.

Hichilema’s victory follows a highly contested election campaign that was marked by intense political competition and debates over governance, economic development, employment and national unity.

The ECZ’s declaration now formally confirms Hichilema as Zambia’s President-Elect, paving the way for his second term in office.

Meanwhile, Economist Kelvin Chisanga, said Zambia’s 2026 election result gives President Hakainde Hichilema a clear mandate to take the country’s economic transformation into its next phase. 

Mr. Chisanga, said with 2,965,326 votes against Brian Mundubile’s 1,856,217, the result is decisive enough that the President’s attention can now shift from campaigning to delivery.

He said the first term was built around repairing, debt restructuring, fiscal consolidation, lower inflation and the slow rebuilding of investor confidence dominated the agenda, after Zambia entered office in 2021 facing a sovereign default and a currency in freefall. 

He said the government’s task now is to convert the stability it has built into outcomes that people can feel, stating that there is need for the president to create more jobs, higher earnings and stronger purchasing power for households that have spent five years absorbing the cost of adjustment.

Mr. Chisanga, advised president Hichilema to focus on value addition in mining and agriculture, stating that doing so will let Zambia capture more of the earnings from its own resources rather than exporting them raw. 

He added that expanding manufacturing and improving energy security will also address two of the constraint’s businesses raise most often thereby strengthening local participation, in procurement, in supply chains, in ownership, would help growth reach beyond the largest firms.