Key takeaways
- The Zambia Union of Professional Educators (ZUPED) congratulated President Hakainde Hichilema and Vice-President Mutale Nalumango on their re-election, in a statement signed by General Secretary Mooka Sibeta.
- The Electoral Commission of Zambia declared Hichilema the winner in the early hours of Tuesday, with 2,965,326 votes (about 61.5%) against Brian Mundubile’s 1,856,217 (about 38.5%), a margin of 1,109,109 votes.
- ZUPED’s statement is an early signal of institutional alignment behind the declared result, arriving as Mundubile continues to raise questions about the tallying process.
- Teachers make up one of the largest blocs of public sector workers on Zambia’s wage bill, so how quickly the union’s goodwill translates into engagement on pay and conditions will be watched closely in the new term.
- The union’s message closed with the campaign slogan “Bally for me, Bally for you and Bally for all,” echoing the informal tone of celebration seen online since the declaration.
Zambia’s largest teachers’ representative body has added its voice to the wave of congratulatory messages following President Hakainde Hichilema’s confirmed re-election, in a statement that points to how quickly public sector unions are positioning themselves for the new term.
The Zambia Union of Professional Educators (ZUPED) said its National Executive Committee, all its structures and its general membership countrywide wished to congratulate President Hichilema and Vice-President Mutale Nalumango “for the landslide re-election for the second term.” The statement, signed by ZUPED General Secretary Mooka Sibeta, wished the pair “God’s guidance, favour, wisdom, strength and continued success” in leading the country.
A confirmed result, not just a claim
ZUPED’s message follows the Electoral Commission of Zambia’s declaration of final results in the early hours of Tuesday. According to the ECZ, Hichilema polled 2,965,326 votes, roughly 61.5% of the total, against 1,856,217 for Brian Mundubile of the National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity, about 38.5%. That puts Hichilema 1,109,109 votes ahead, comfortably above the constitutional threshold needed to avoid a run-off.
The margin caps an election that had, at points, looked less settled than the final numbers suggest. Vote counting was briefly suspended nationwide on 14 August after reports of violence and ballot theft in some districts, a move the Law Association of Zambia publicly questioned on legal grounds before the ECZ reversed course. Mundubile has said he received information about possible alteration of result forms at some polling stations and has called for an independent investigation, an allegation Hichilema’s camp has rejected. International observers, including the European Union’s observation mission, described the vote itself as largely peaceful while flagging that “late legal changes, legal uncertainty, and unequal campaign conditions distorted the playing field.”
None of that dispute concerns the professional and civic-body reaction now under way. ZUPED’s statement is among the more visible examples of an institution formally aligning itself with the declared outcome, using language, including the campaign refrain “Bally for me, Bally for you and Bally for all,” that echoes the informal tone of celebration seen across social media since Tuesday’s announcement.
Why a teachers’ union’s reaction matters economically
ZUPED represents teaching staff across Zambia’s public education system, a workforce that sits inside one of government’s largest recurring expenditure lines. Public sector wages, of which teachers form a substantial share, have been a persistent constraint on fiscal space through Zambia’s ongoing debt restructuring and IMF programme.
A union moving early to extend goodwill to a returning administration does not, on its own, resolve any of the pay, staffing or conditions questions that typically dominate the relationship between government and the teaching profession. But it does set a tone. Public sector unions that open a new term on cooperative footing tend to negotiate through established channels rather than industrial action, at least in the opening months, which matters for a government trying to hold the line on a public sector wage bill already under IMF scrutiny.
What to watch next
The test for ZUPED’s members will come once the goodwill of a congratulatory statement gives way to the practical business of a new term: salary negotiations, recruitment numbers, and how the Ministry of Education’s budget allocation is treated in the next national budget cycle. For now, the union’s statement offers an early, if largely symbolic, marker of how one of the country’s largest public sector constituencies is choosing to engage with a confirmed second Hichilema administration.
Business, investor and policy implications
- For public finances: continuity in the presidency reduces near-term policy uncertainty for the IMF-supported fiscal consolidation programme, but the size of the public sector wage bill, of which teachers are a major component, remains a structural pressure point regardless of who holds office.
- For labour relations: early, cooperative signals from a union as large as ZUPED lower the near-term risk of industrial action in the education sector, a factor businesses and households with school-age children will welcome heading into the new term.
- For governance watchers: the gap between institutional statements like ZUPED’s, congratulating a declared winner, and Mundubile’s unresolved concerns about the tallying process illustrates the two parallel tracks Zambia’s post-election period is running on: formal acceptance by state and civic institutions, alongside an opposition challenge that has not been withdrawn.
ZUPED’s congratulatory statement is a small but telling data point in the days following Zambia’s 2026 election: proof that, whatever disputes remain over the counting process, key public sector institutions are already moving to engage with the confirmed outcome. Whether that early goodwill holds through the harder conversations on pay and budget allocation will be one of the more consequential storylines of Hichilema’s second term.
Related coverage
- Zambia Holds Its Breath: What the Wait for a Presidential Declaration Means for Business
- ECZ Lifts Vote-Count Suspension as Zambia’s Election Stays Unsettled Between Rival Claims
- LAZ Challenges Legality of ECZ’s Nationwide Vote-Counting Suspension
- Zambia’s Post-Election Rally Is Economically Sound
- Emoluments Commission Congratulates President-Elect
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