Polls closed at 18:00 on Thursday 13 August and the first official results are due imminently: the Electoral Commission of Zambia said its first batch would be announced from 22:00 on Friday 14 August, and it had earlier expected to declare the presidential result by Monday 17 August. Results are read out at the national results centre in Lusaka and published constituency by constituency, so the national picture builds over hours rather than landing all at once. No figure is official until the ECZ declares it, whatever any campaign announces in the meantime — the chairperson of the commission, Mwangala Zaloumis SC, has asked parties, candidates and the public to rely only on results it has released and verified. A candidate needs more than 50% of valid votes to win outright, otherwise the two leading candidates go to a run-off within 37 days. What happens next: the ECZ announces verified results in batches until every constituency has reported. This page updates itself — there is nothing to refresh. It re-checks the commission every 15 minutes and swaps in the votes and share for every candidate the moment new figures are published; the line under the headline shows when it last checked, and switches to the timestamp of the results once they arrive.
About this election
Zambians choose their head of state on Thursday 13 August 2026, on the same day they elect the National Assembly and their local councils. The presidency is the prize that dominates the campaign: Zambia is a presidential republic in which the head of state is also head of government, appoints the cabinet and sets the direction of economic policy. President Hakainde Hichilema, who broke through in 2021 at his sixth attempt, is seeking a second and — under the two-term limit — final five-year mandate. He faces an opposition that spent the parliament fragmenting, regrouping and litigating, and which arrives at polling day split across at least three separate alliances rather than the single challenger that unseated the Patriotic Front five years ago.
Since the 2016 constitutional amendments Zambia uses an absolute-majority system: a candidate must win more than 50% of the valid votes cast to be elected outright. If nobody clears that bar, a run-off between the two leading candidates must be held within 37 days. No Zambian presidential election has yet gone to a second round under this rule — Edgar Lungu cleared 50% in 2016 and Hichilema won 59.02% in 2021 — but with a crowded field of fourteen candidates the arithmetic is worth watching closely on the night. Two other features of the system matter. First, each presidential candidate runs on a joint ticket with a named running mate who automatically becomes Vice-President; there is no separate vice-presidential ballot and no confirmation vote. Second, the result can be challenged: a petition against the declaration must be filed with the Constitutional Court within seven days, and the court has fourteen days to decide it. Elections are administered by the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ), the body created by Article 229 of the constitution to conduct and certify the vote.
Fourteen candidates were nominated — thirteen representing parties and one independent. Hichilema stands for the United Party for National Development (UPND) at the head of the UPND Alliance, with Vice-President Mutale Nalumango again as his running mate; several smaller party leaders who once ran against him, among them Highvie Hamududu, Nevers Mumba and Felix Mutati, endorsed him rather than standing. The main opposition vehicle is the Tonse Alliance, which was built around Edgar Lungu until the Constitutional Court ruled in December 2024 that he was ineligible to stand again and his death in June 2025 left the alliance leaderless; it chose the MP Brian Mundubile as its candidate in January 2026, with Makebi Zulu as running mate, and after the Patriotic Front's leadership remained tied up in court he filed his nomination under the National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity. Harry Kalaba, who took third place in 2021, is standing for Citizens First at the head of the CF Orange Alliance with Moses Mawere as running mate, backed by Saboi Imboela's National Democratic Congress. Fred M'membe is again the Socialist Party candidate, and the long-serving Chiengi MP Given Katuta is running as an independent.
Economic management is the argument of the campaign. In November 2020 Zambia became the first African country to default on its sovereign debt during the COVID-19 pandemic; the Hichilema government negotiated a restructuring of that debt with bilateral creditors under the G20 Common Framework and with private bondholders, under an International Monetary Fund programme. The government points to that deal, to restored access to finance and to renewed investment in copper — Zambia is one of Africa's largest producers and copper underwrites both export earnings and government revenue — as proof that the recovery is real. The opposition points at the cost of living, at a severe drought that crippled hydroelectric generation and forced prolonged load-shedding, at fertiliser and fuel prices, and at the shortage of jobs for a very young electorate. Governance is the second front: opposition parties and civil-society groups have criticised the use of public-order and cyber-security laws against critics, while the government's supporters argue the space for dissent is wider than it was before 2021.
Zambian presidential elections have a pronounced regional shape. The UPND's heartland is the Southern, Western and North-Western provinces, where Hichilema has run up very large majorities in every cycle. The Patriotic Front's historic strongholds are Northern, Luapula and Muchinga, and the party long dominated the Copperbelt, the urban mining belt that is the country's industrial core. The decisive shift in 2021 was Hichilema's breakthrough in the Copperbelt and in Lusaka, urban provinces with large, young populations whose turnout swings the national number. Whether that urban realignment survives a term of load-shedding and high living costs — and whether the post-Lungu opposition can rebuild in the north — is the question the province-by-province returns will answer.
Hichilema won outright in the first round, ending the Patriotic Front's decade in office in the third peaceful transfer of power since multi-party politics returned in 1991.
| Presidential (2021) | Votes | Vote % |
| Hakainde Hichilema (UPND) | 2,852,348 | 59.02 |
| Edgar Lungu (PF) | 1,870,780 | 38.71 |
| Harry Kalaba (DP) | 25,231 | 0.52 |
Shares are of the 4,832,763 valid votes cast across all sixteen candidates; a further 126,569 ballots were rejected. Turnout was 70.61% of the 7,023,499 people then registered — unusually high, and driven by young and first-time voters. The register has since grown to roughly 8.8 million.
Public polling in Zambia is sparse and should be treated with caution. The most widely reported survey of the cycle, published at the end of December 2025 by a team led by a University of Zambia demographer, put Hichilema on about 60% with the combined opposition around 35%, and showed him between 58% and 63% in head-to-head matchups against individual challengers. A divided opposition field mechanically helps an incumbent under a 50%-plus-one rule, but Zambian elections have produced late swings before, and the 2021 result itself was well outside what pre-election commentary expected.
This page updates itself on election night. Every candidate's votes and share are read directly from the Electoral Commission of Zambia's official results portal as constituency declarations are added to it, and the shares shown here are recomputed as a proportion of valid votes cast — the basis Zambian law uses for the 50%-plus-one threshold, and not the same as the portal's own percentage column, which is calculated on all ballots cast. Figures stay provisional until the ECZ chairperson, who acts as the presidential election returning officer, formally declares the result — which happens once returns from every constituency have been received and verified rather than on a fixed statutory clock. The commission has set itself Monday 17 August as the target for that declaration, the fourth day after polling and the same interval it took in 2021. The ECZ does not publish a per-province split of the presidential count on its portal, so the regional map lives on the National Assembly page, where constituency declarations are grouped by province.
Voting takes place on Thursday 13 August 2026, with polls open from 06:00 to 18:00 local time (UTC+2). The presidency, the National Assembly and local councils are all filled on the same day.
By absolute majority: a candidate needs more than 50% of valid votes to win in the first round, otherwise a run-off between the two leading candidates is held within 37 days. Each candidate runs on a joint ticket with a running mate who becomes Vice-President, and the result can be challenged in the Constitutional Court within seven days of the declaration.
Fourteen candidates were nominated — thirteen from parties and one independent. Incumbent Hakainde Hichilema stands for the UPND with Vice-President Mutale Nalumango as running mate; Brian Mundubile is the Tonse Alliance candidate, standing under the National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity after the Patriotic Front's leadership dispute remained before the courts; Harry Kalaba leads the CF Orange Alliance for Citizens First; Fred M'membe stands for the Socialist Party; and former Chiengi MP Given Katuta is running as an independent.
No. The Constitutional Court ruled in December 2024 that the former president was ineligible to stand for a further term, and he died in June 2025. His absence left the Tonse Alliance, which had been built around his candidacy, to select a new nominee in January 2026.
The ECZ has said it expects to declare the presidential result by Monday 17 August 2026, the fourth day after polling. No statute fixes that date: the commission chairperson, acting as presidential election returning officer, declares the winner once returns from every constituency have been received and verified, and the timetable is the ECZ's own target rather than a legal deadline. The 2021 precedent matches it — voting on 12 August, declaration in the early hours of 16 August — and partial national figures were public well before that. Provisional numbers appear on this page automatically as the ECZ publishes them.
The economy dominates. Zambia was the first African country to default during the pandemic, in November 2020, and has since restructured its debt under an IMF programme. The cost of living, electricity shortages caused by drought-hit hydropower, copper revenues, youth unemployment and the state of democratic freedoms are the recurring campaign themes.
Compiled and reviewed by Bartłomiej Paruzel, Election Data Analyst, from official results. See our data methodology.