{"id":116790,"date":"2026-08-16T06:41:10","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T06:41:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/116790\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T06:41:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T06:41:10","slug":"observers-say-zambias-election-marred-by-reports-of-intimidation-violence-elections-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/116790\/","title":{"rendered":"Observers say Zambia\u2019s election marred by reports of intimidation, violence | Elections News"},"content":{"rendered":"

International observers monitoring Zambia\u2019s presidential election have raised concerns over reports of intimidation and abductions, after vote counting was suspended for several hours amid violence at polling stations.<\/p>\n

Observer missions \u2013 including those from the European Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region \u2013 on Saturday called for parties to tone down inflammatory statements as votes cast in Thursday\u2019s general election<\/a> were tallied.<\/p>\n

Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n

Vote counting was temporarily suspended on Friday following reports of violence against polling staff and the alleged theft of ballot papers. Counting resumed hours later after the electoral commission said the \u201csecurity threat to the electoral process had been contained\u201d, said Al Jazeera\u2019s Haru Mutasa, reporting from the capital, Lusaka.<\/p>\n

Zambia\u2019s President Hakainde Hichilema, 64, is seeking a second term with the ruling United Party for National Development (UPND). His main challenger is a 55-year-old former minister in the previous Patriotic Front (PF) government, Brian Mundubile, who is running as the opposition candidate for the National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity (NRPUP).<\/p>\n

Mundubile said the suspension \u201craises legitimate fears\u201d, warning that the delay in counting could \u201ccreate an opportunity for interference with manipulation of results\u201d.<\/p>\n

His UPND rivals rejected the allegation. Mark Simuuwe, campaign media director for Hichilema, told Al Jazeera that the opposition was \u201cpanicking\u201d. He insisted the results were \u201clegitimate\u201d and accused Mundubile\u2019s party of \u201cdisruption\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u2018Uncertainty and anxiety\u2019<\/p>\n

Samuel Tembenu, a former Malawian justice minister who leads the regional SADC observer mission, said his team \u201cwas not in a position to observe the counting and collection of results during the period of suspension\u201d, adding that the mission would address the episode in its final report.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe mission at the moment urges all contestants, their supporters, and all stakeholders to remain calm,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Tembenu added that the suspension had caused \u201cuncertainty and anxiety\u201d, and said his mission had received, though could not independently verify, reports of intimidation, assault, abduction and property damage across five provinces, with some submissions alleging injuries and at least one fatality.<\/p>\n

Michael McNamara, the chief observer of the European Union\u2019s observer mission in Zambia, said: \u201cIt is for the Zambian authorities to outline in full the reasons for the decision-making\u201d behind the suspension. He separately said the vote had unfolded against \u201ca backdrop of constrained democratic space<\/a>,\u201d citing the advantages of incumbency and what he described as heavily biased state media coverage of the race.<\/p>\n

Reinhold Lopatka, who led the European Parliament\u2019s observer delegation, said the pause appeared \u201cdisproportionate\u201d given that only a small fraction of Zambia\u2019s more than 13,000 polling stations had reportedly been affected.<\/p>\n

He said his mission had been told that opposition figures faced intimidation, including from security forces, that some candidates had withdrawn under pressure, and that opposition rallies had been broken up by violence. \u201cEven one loss of life is one too many,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Zambian police said nine people had been arrested over the killing of a 57-year-old polling agent in a township outside Lusaka on election day, while maintaining that voting had otherwise passed off peacefully.<\/p>\n

\"TOPSHOTZambian incumbent President Hakainde Hichilema casts his ballot at the Kabulonga Boys Secondary School polling station in Lusaka on August 13, 2026 [AFP]Vote counting continues<\/p>\n

Mundubile has claimed victory, citing his party\u2019s own parallel vote count and alleging irregularities, including claims that military personnel took control of tallying centres in Mufulira, that result forms went missing and that officials in North-Western Province were told to stop releasing results.<\/p>\n

Hichilema has stopped short of declaring victory, saying only that his campaign was seeing \u201cencouraging\u201d results as official counting continued.<\/p>\n

The Electoral Commission of Zambia released a batch of official results late Saturday at the National Results Centre, based on a partial count of 49 of 226 constituencies. Hichilema led with 438,708 votes (52.6 percent), followed by Mundubile with 351,281 votes (42.1 percent) and Kelvin Bwalya of the Zambia Must Prosper party a distant third with 3,965 votes. The commission cautioned that the figures were not yet final.<\/p>\n

Al Jazeera\u2019s Mutasa reported that police and soldiers in armed vehicles had been deployed in parts of Lusaka, and said it remained unclear whether Friday\u2019s suspension would delay the announcement of final results, previously expected on Monday.<\/p>\n

The commission said it would issue a further notice on Sunday morning regarding the timing of its next results announcement.<\/p>\n

About 8.7 million people were registered to vote in Zambia, a country of 22 million that is rich in copper reserves, with a long history of peaceful transfers of power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"International observers monitoring Zambia\u2019s presidential election have raised concerns over reports of intimidation and abductions, after vote counting…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":116791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[289,222,54,39,40,115,49,46,58559],"class_list":["post-116790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-africa","tag-crime","tag-elections","tag-eu","tag-european-union","tag-human-rights","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-zambia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=116790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/116790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/116791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=116790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=116790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=116790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}