Zambia's election marred by violence, intimidation as international observers raise concerns

Zambia's presidential election on Thursday descended into chaos before the votes were even fully counted. By Friday, the electoral commission had suspended the tallying process entirely—a dramatic pause that lasted several hours and raised immediate questions about what was happening behind closed doors. The suspension came after reports of violence at polling stations, attacks on election workers, and allegations that ballot papers had been stolen. When counting resumed later that day, officials said they had contained what they called a "security threat to the electoral process," but the damage to public confidence was already done.

International observers who had come to monitor the vote found themselves unable to do their jobs during the critical hours when results were being collected and counted. Samuel Tembenu, a former justice minister from Malawi leading the Southern African Development Community's observer mission, acknowledged the gap in his team's oversight. More troubling than the procedural failure, however, were the reports flooding in from across the country. Tembenu's mission received accounts—though could not independently verify them—of intimidation, assault, abduction, and property damage spanning five provinces. At least one person had been killed. The suspension itself, Tembenu said, had injected "uncertainty and anxiety" into an already tense process.

The European Union's observer mission painted a darker picture of the broader electoral environment. Michael McNamara, the chief observer, noted that voting had taken place against a backdrop of what he called "constrained democratic space," with state media coverage heavily favoring the incumbent and the advantages of incumbency on full display. Reinhold Lopatka, who led the European Parliament's delegation, went further, saying that opposition figures had faced intimidation—including from security forces themselves—that some candidates had withdrawn under pressure, and that opposition rallies had been disrupted by violence. He called the suspension "disproportionate," pointing out that only a small fraction of Zambia's more than 13,000 polling stations had been affected by the violence that prompted it.

The two main candidates offered starkly different interpretations of what the suspension meant. Brian Mundubile, a 55-year-old former minister running as the opposition candidate for the National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity, said the pause "raises legitimate fears" and warned that the delay could "create an opportunity for interference with manipulation of results." He went on to claim victory based on his party's own parallel count and alleged multiple irregularities: military personnel taking control of tallying centers in one district, result forms going missing, and officials in another province being told to stop releasing numbers. President Hakainde Hichilema, 64, seeking a second term with the ruling United Party for National Development, stopped short of declaring victory but said his campaign was seeing "encouraging" results. His campaign media director, Mark Simuuwe, dismissed Mundubile's concerns as panic and accused the opposition of trying to disrupt the process.

The partial results released late Saturday told one story, at least. Based on a count of 49 of 226 constituencies, Hichilema led with 438,708 votes—52.6 percent of the tally so far—while Mundubile had 351,281 votes, or 42.1 percent. A third candidate, Kelvin Bwalya of the Zambia Must Prosper party, trailed far behind with 3,965 votes. The Electoral Commission of Zambia cautioned that these figures were preliminary. Police had arrested nine people in connection with the killing of a 57-year-old polling agent in a township outside the capital, Lusaka, on election day itself. Armed police and soldiers had been deployed in parts of the city as counting continued.

Zambia, a country of 22 million people and a major copper producer, has long been known for peaceful transfers of power. About 8.7 million people were registered to vote. The question now was whether that tradition would hold, and whether the international observers' concerns about the integrity of the process would prove justified once all the votes were tallied. The Electoral Commission said it would announce the timing of its next results release on Sunday morning, but it remained unclear whether Friday's suspension would delay the final announcement, which had been expected on Monday.