Zambia Election: Incumbent Defeated, Celebrations Break Out

Opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema secured a stunning landslide win over incumbent Edgar Lungu in Zambia's 2021 presidential election.

The electoral commission on Monday said Hichilema garnered 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.

That would make the third time that power has shifted peacefully from a ruling party to the opposition since the southern African country's independence from Britain in 1964.

Across 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.

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

Lungu, 64, has yet to concede defeat, and has indicated that he might challenge the result.

Lungu on Saturday alleged that the election was “not free and fair” after incidents of violence against ruling Patriotic Front Party agents in three provinces.

UPND officials dismissed Lungu’s statement as emanating from people “trying to throw out the entire election just to cling on to their jobs”.