Zambia opposition leader Hichilema wins landslide as President Lungu concedes defeat

Opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema has secured a stunning landslide victory over incumbent Edgar Lungu in Zambia’s presidential election, results showed on Monday.

The electoral commission said Hichilema got 2,810,777 votes against Lungu’s 1,814,201, with all but one of the 156 constituencies counted.

“I therefore declare that the said Hichilema to be president of Zambia,” electoral commission chairman, Esau Chulu, said in a packed results centre in the capital Lusaka.

President Edgar Lungu conceded defeat after announcement of the results by the electoral commission marking the southern African country’s third peaceful handover of power to an opposition party since independence.

 “I will comply with the constitutional provisions for a peaceful transition of power. I would therefore like to congratulate my brother, the president-elect, His Excellency Mr Hakainde Hichilema,” Lungu, 64, said in a short, televised address to the nation.

It would be recalled that Lungu had cried foul on Saturday, calling the election “not free and fair” after violence against ruling Patriotic Front party agents in three provinces, but the size of the margin would have made it near-impossible to challenge the result in couAcross Zambia, celebrations broke out in the streets as Hichilema’s supporters wearing the red and yellow of his United Party for National Development (UPND) danced and sang, while drivers honked their horns.

Celebrations could be short-lived however: Zambia is in dire financial straights, and it became the continent’s first pandemic-era sovereign default in November after failing to keep up with its international debt payments. read more

That was owing to an explosive mix of depressed commodity prices – which had pushed Zambia into recession well before the pandemic – and a brutal slowdown in economic activity caused by the pandemic itself.

Hichilema, 59, a former CEO at an accounting firm before entering politics, now faces the task of trying to revive Zambia’s fortunes. The economy has been buoyed only slightly by more favourable copper prices – now hovering around decade highs, driven partly by the boom in electric cars.

Last year, Zambia, Africa’s second biggest copper miner, produced a record output of the metal.

International Monetary Fund support is on hold until after the vote, as is a debt restructuring plan seen as an early test for a new global plan aimed at easing the burden of poor countries. read more