Ten Days That Tested Zambia: Hichilema’s Re-election, Sealed Courts and a Cooling Inflation Rate

By The Zambian Economist Analyst

Between Monday 18 August and Thursday 28 August, Zambia settled a presidential election, closed the door on a legal challenge to it, and quietly recorded its slowest inflation in years. President Hakainde Hichilema was declared the winner of the 13 August general election with about 60% of the vote, avoiding a runoff. His main rival, Brian Mundubile of the Tonse Alliance, took roughly 38% and refused to accept the result, alleging serious irregularities in the count.

The declaration should have ended the uncertainty. Instead it opened a more difficult chapter. Mundubile spent part of the period in hiding over threats he says were made against him. Police summoned him and his running mate Makebi Zulu for questioning over alleged national security threats, a step his supporters describe as politically motivated. Then, on 24 August, authorities sealed off the Constitutional Court and other superior courts on the very last day allowed for filing an election petition, citing security reasons. The Law Association of Zambia condemned the closure, which rested on an unsigned memorandum from the judiciary’s chief administrator. State House denied that the President had ordered the shutdown.

Running alongside the political drama, the economic numbers were moving the other way. Annual inflation eased to 6.2% in August from 6.5% in July, according to the Zambia Statistics Agency, the lowest reading in years, helped by cheaper food and fuel and a kwacha that has held near K19.07 per dollar on the Bank of Zambia mid-rate. First-quarter GDP growth came in at 7.7% on stronger copper output. The contrast is stark: an economy healing while its institutions take strain. This piece traces what happened, day by day, and what it means for households, businesses and investors.

How the ten days unfolded

The result, and the rejection that followed

Hichilema’s share of the vote, recorded at 60.49% by compiled results and reported at about 61% of valid votes by Al Jazeera, gave him a first-round win under Zambia’s 50%-plus-one rule. Turnout mattered as much as the margin: the election was widely framed as a referendum on his economic record, fought over the cost of living, power tariffs, fuel prices and debt. He won it despite those pressures, on the strength of a recovery voters could feel in pay packets more than in headlines.

Mundubile’s response was to dispute the count rather than concede. His campaign said it had documented irregularities and he announced plans to challenge the result in court. Those plans ran into the events of 24 August. With the superior courts sealed and the constitutional deadline passing, the legal avenue for contesting the election closed. Zambia has been here before from the other direction: in 2021 the courts heard and dismissed Edgar Lungu’s challenge to his defeat. This time the petition never reached a desk.

The day the courts closed

Reuters reported that police blocked access to court premises on 24 August, the last of the fourteen days allowed for filing a presidential petition. The judiciary’s own staff learned of the closure through an unsigned memorandum from the chief administrator dated that morning. The Law Association of Zambia questioned both the legality and the manner of the shutdown. Human Rights Watch called it a serious setback for accountability.

State House rejected claims that Hichilema ordered the closure to block petitions. Whatever the chain of responsibility, the effect is not in dispute: the opposition’s constitutional route to contesting the election expired unused. For a country that has changed governing parties peacefully three times since 1991, that is an uncomfortable first. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s warning on 27 August, that Hichilema risks wasting Zambia’s democratic legacy, captured the concern shared by the church mother bodies that issued separate calls for calm.

The Auditor General the courts removed

Amid the election dispute, the Constitutional Court delivered a ruling with long consequences for public finance. On 21 August, in the case Law Association of Zambia v The Attorney General and Another, the court held that the appointment of the acting Auditor General, Dr Ron Mwambwa, was unconstitutional on grounds of age, and ordered him to immediately cease performing the functions of the office and vacate it. He did so on 23 August.

The office he leaves vacant audits every ministry, province and spending agency, and its reports feed the Public Accounts Committee. It fell vacant in the same month that a new government takes power with a large parliamentary majority, precisely the moment an Auditor General earns their salary. The reaction was divided. The Law Association, which brought the case, defended the ruling as a straightforward application of the constitutional age limit. Commentators elsewhere, including a widely shared opinion piece in News Diggers, argued Mwambwa had served diligently and deserved better than judicial removal. Whoever is appointed next inherits a backlog of audit reports and a public service about to process a new administration’s first budgets. Our Auditor General Explained hub carries the background on what the office does and why the vacancy matters.

A new National Assembly takes shape

The presidential race was only half the ballot. Final results give the UPND 160 of the 278 seats in the expanded National Assembly, with Mundubile’s National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity on 76, independents around 19, the Rainbow Party about 5 and the Christian Front 2. The assembly grew after the Electoral Commission created 70 new constituencies ahead of the vote, and the 2025 constitutional amendments added 40 proportional representation seats to the 226 elected directly.

For economic policy, the arithmetic matters more than the inauguration pomp. A government with 160 of 278 seats can pass money bills, budget measures and even constitutional amendments with little need to negotiate. The check on that power now rests less with parliament and more with the courts, the press and the auditor’s office, one of which was sealed this month and another of which is vacant. Newly elected members are due at Parliament Buildings on 30 August for registration and orientation before the first sitting, at which they will be sworn in and elect a Speaker and two deputies. The pace of legislative business in the first hundred days will tell investors whether the government intends to use its majority for reform or for convenience.

The world weighs in

Congratulations arrived quickly and from the usual directions. China’s President Xi Jinping was among the first, with the foreign ministry in Beijing pointing to the strength of the bilateral relationship and, with it, the fate of Zambia’s creditor engagement. Angola’s João Lourenço called the win a reflection of Zambians’ trust in the president’s leadership. Tanzania’s Samia Suluhu Hassan and other regional neighbours sent similar messages, and IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva’s early note of congratulation signalled that Fund engagement will continue into a second term.

The warmth from capitals contrasts with the caution from governance watchers. The Mo Ibrahim Foundation’s warning about Zambia’s democratic legacy landed in the same week as the goodwill messages. For an economy that still prices its debt off institutions as much as copper, both signals will be read together.

What happened to the economy in the same ten days?

While the political story hardened, the economic data softened in a good way. The Zambia Statistics Agency reported that annual inflation eased to 6.2% in August from 6.5% in July, with monthly inflation steady at 0.2%. Falling food and fuel prices did most of the work, helped by a kwacha that has been one of the world’s stronger currencies over the past eighteen months after appreciating roughly 31% against the US dollar between December 2024 and mid-2026. On 26 August the Bank of Zambia quoted a mid-rate of K19.0729 per dollar.

The real economy has been accelerating too. GDP grew 7.7% year on year in the first quarter of 2026, driven by higher copper output at a time of firm global demand for the metal. The government expects 6.4% growth for the full year; the IMF, which has trimmed its 2026 forecast twice to 4.3%, is more cautious. Finance ministry officials have said they hope to agree a new IMF programme by the end of the year. Read our fuller breakdown of the August inflation figures.

What this means for your pocket

Inflation at 6.2% means prices are still rising, just more slowly. The June 2025 peak above 16% feels distant now, but mealie meal, transport and rent remain the items that dominate household budgets, and a slower inflation rate lowers a price level that never fell. The practical gains from this period are real but modest: steadier fuel pump prices, a kwacha that holds its value between one shop visit and the next, and borrowing costs that should drift lower if the Bank of Zambia continues to see disinflation. Anyone holding a variable-rate loan should watch the central bank’s next monetary policy committee meeting closely.

What this means for business

For SMEs, the past ten days delivered the clarity that the election wait had withheld. A declared result and a 1 September swearing-in mean government payments, procurement cycles and policy decisions can resume. Businesses that deferred investment or hiring in August can plan against a known administration with a known parliamentary arithmetic. The caution is political risk: the sealed courts and the treason investigation involving the main opposition leader are the kind of headlines that make trade credit insurers and multinational credit committees tighten terms. Firms importing stock should note that the kwacha held through the dispute, but hedging dollar obligations through the swearing-in remains cheap insurance.

What this means for investors

Foreign investors read this period through the risk premium, and the signals cut both ways. On the plus side: a first-round win that removes coalition uncertainty, first-quarter growth of 7.7%, disinflation to 6.2%, and a government signalling continuity on the IMF relationship. IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva was among the first to congratulate Hichilema. On the minus side: a contested result with no judicial resolution, an opposition leader under investigation for treason, and questions from the Mo Ibrahim Foundation about the direction of governance. Zambia’s Eurobonds and mining interests have absorbed worse. But investors pricing a second term will now attach a discount for institutional risk that a clean petition process would have removed. See our analysis of Zambia’s 2026 election economics.

What happens next

Three dates and processes deserve attention. First, the swearing-in on Tuesday 1 September, which triggers the appointment of a new cabinet and the first signals of second-term economic policy. Second, the new IMF programme the finance ministry hopes to conclude by year-end, which will frame fiscal policy, mining taxation and debt management through 2027. Third, the conduct of the Mundubile case. A prosecution seen as political would deepen the governance questions; restraint would temper them. The church bodies’ calls for calm, and the government’s response to them, will shape the temperature on the street. Our 2026 election results dashboard carries the full data.

Zambia ends these ten days with a president elected on an economic recovery, and a set of institutions tested harder than at any point since the last transition of power. Both facts will matter. The inflation number says the reform programme is working. The closed courtroom says its political foundations are narrower than the vote share suggests. The next five years will be judged on which of those two facts the country builds on.

Update: read our new weekly diary, Events of the Week, 29 August 2026, reviewing the week to 28 August and the calendar through 4 September.

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Follow-up, 31 August: six parliamentary election petitions have now been filed at the Lusaka High Court, including challenges by former ministers Paul Kabuswe and Sylvia Masebo. Read: Six Parliamentary Seats Challenged Before the Lusaka High Court.