Six Parliamentary Seats Challenged Before the Lusaka High Court

Six parliamentary results from the 13 August election are now before the Lusaka High Court. Two former ministers and four UPND candidates filed the petitions, and each case carries a 90-day clock that will run alongside the first sittings of the new National Assembly.

By The Zambian Economist Analyst | Lusaka | 31 August 2026

Six contests from Zambia’s 13 August general election have moved from the campaign trail to the courtroom. Losing parliamentary candidates, among them two former cabinet ministers, have filed election petitions at the Lusaka High Court asking judges to examine the declared results in their constituencies. The filings land between two fixed points in the political calendar: MPs-elect reported for registration and orientation on 30 August, and the presidential inauguration follows on 1 September.

The petitions also arrive after an election whose administration was anything but routine. The Electoral Commission of Zambia suspended counting nationwide on 14 August after reports of violence and ballot theft, then lifted the suspension hours later. One Lusaka constituency, Mandevu, never received a declared winner at all and votes again on 24 September. The six petitions now entering the High Court are the formal channel through which the disputed edges of this election get resolved, or left standing.

The names on the docket

Former Minister Paul Kabuswe, who contested Chililabombwe on the Copperbelt, and former Minister Sylvia Masebo, who contested Chongwe in Lusaka Province, have filed their petitions at the Lusaka High Court. Both went to the polls with ministerial service behind their names. Both finished on the losing side of counts they now want a judge to examine.

Four further petitions come from candidates who ran on the governing party’s ticket. Remember Mutale has petitioned Nelson Kabanda of the NRPUP over the Chitambo seat in Central Province, a constituency whose local economy took centre stage during the campaign. Tylad Lungo has petitioned Lumankio Zulu, who carried Milanzi in Eastern Province as an independent candidate. Sunday Chanda has filed over Kanchibiya in Muchinga Province, and Olipah Phiri has filed over Nyimba in Eastern Province.

From concession speech to court filing

The Kanchibiya petition carries a twist of its own. On 16 August, three days after polls closed, Sunday Chanda issued a farewell statement conceding the seat he had held since 2021, accepting the outcome, in his words, “with humility and respect”. Much of that statement defended his vote for Bill 7, the delimitation law that split the old Kanchibiya area into two constituencies, a vote his own constituents told him on the campaign trail had cost the area politically. Two weeks on, the same result is before the High Court at his own instance.

What the law requires, and how fast the clock runs

Parliamentary election petitions in Zambia go to the High Court. The Constitutional Court, which the authorities sealed off on 24 August, the last day for filing a presidential challenge, reserves its election work for presidential disputes. The Constitution requires a parliamentary petition to be filed within seven days of the declaration of the constituency result, and it obliges the High Court to hear and determine the case within ninety days of filing. Either side may appeal the judgment to the Constitutional Court within seven days.

A petition does not unseat anyone on its own. The declared winners in the six constituencies can be sworn in and serve while their elections are examined, so the members for Chililabombwe, Chongwe, Chitambo, Milanzi, Kanchibiya and Nyimba begin the new term with their races under judicial scrutiny rather than in limbo. What a petition can do, if it succeeds, is nullify the result and order a by-election.

Timing will be the first question every filing meets. Declarations in this election did not arrive in a neat sequence, because the count was suspended nationwide and restarted, and Mandevu was never declared at all. The seven-day window runs separately for each seat. On the ninety-day rule, petitions filed this week would fall due for judgment by the end of November, with any appeals after that.

The arithmetic the petitions cannot touch

The government’s position in the new Assembly is not in play. The UPND holds 160 of the 278 seats against 76 for Brian Mundubile’s NRPUP, a margin no six-seat shift can close. Four of the six petitioners ran on the UPND ticket, so the governing party’s interest in these cases points in one direction only: seats it might recover, not seats it might lose.

The stakes are local and financial. Each by-election mobilises the Electoral Commission, the security services and party campaign machinery. Each returning or newly elected member administers a Constituency Development Fund allocation, a fund the Auditor General has repeatedly flagged for weak controls. For voters in a constituency whose result is nullified, the price is a fresh campaign season on top of an outcome they thought was settled.

One petition lands on a party already facing charges

The Chitambo case arrives against a charged backdrop. Its target, Nelson Kabanda of the NRPUP, belongs to the party whose leaders were charged with treason this month in a docket that has risen to 18 accused. A civil fight over one parliamentary seat will now run alongside the criminal proceedings against the seat winner’s party leadership, two legal stories from one election moving through different courtrooms.

The Milanzi petition has a different flavour. Lumankio Zulu won the seat as an independent, in the same election that returned independents such as Vincent Mwale in Chipangali. His case tests a victory that arrived without a party machine behind it, which is precisely why the petition against it will be watched beyond Katete.

What to watch

• Case management. Whether the High Court assigns the six petitions to one judge or several, and whether any are consolidated.
• The 90-day clock. Filings this week put judgments due by the end of November, with appeals to the Constitutional Court available after that.
• The Mandevu rerun on 24 September. The first fresh contest since the totalling-centre attack that voided the original result will show how the Commission runs an election under renewed scrutiny.
• The first sittings of the new Assembly. The six members whose elections are challenged take their seats with cases hanging over them, and with a 30-member cabinet to be appointed from among MPs.

The petitions will not decide who governs. They will decide whether six constituencies got the results their ballots say they got. In a country still arguing about how the bigger count was run, that is work enough for one court.

Related reading

• UPND’s Akashambatwa: Colleagues’ Election Petitions Are “Abusing the Courts”
• NRPUP Leaders Charged With Treason as Case Docket Rises to 18
• Ten Days That Tested Zambia: Hichilema’s Re-election, Sealed Courts and a Cooling Inflation Rate
• Sunday Chanda Concedes Kanchibiya Seat, Defends His Bill 7 Vote in Farewell Statement
• Mandevu to Vote Again: ECZ Sets Fresh Parliamentary Election for 24 September
• ECZ Suspends Vote Counting Nationwide After Reports of Violence and Ballot Theft
• Hichilema vs Mundubile: Zambia’s Two-Horse Race, Seven Days Out
• OAG Reports Simplified: How Zambia Audits the Constituency Development Fund
• Hichilema’s Second Inauguration: Zambia Now Waits for the Cabinet That Will Define His Final Term

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