{"id":41609,"date":"2026-08-05T13:09:59","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T11:09:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=41609"},"modified":"2026-08-05T13:09:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T11:09:59","slug":"economy-dominates-zambia-poll","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/economy-dominates-zambia-poll\/","title":{"rendered":"Economy dominates Zambia poll"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>As Zambia prepares to head to the polls on August 13, 2026, global movement Fight Inequality Alliance says the country will vote with the economy on the line.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>It says the government boasts of stability and growth, but ordinary families are crushed by soaring prices, blackouts, and daily hardship.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Fight Inequality Alliance says the crisis is no accident.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p>Mputa Ngalande, Zambia National Coordinator of Fight Inequality Alliance says it is the product of IMF austerity and bad policy and political choices that reward corporations while food, fuel, and school fees slip out of reach for millions of Zambians.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So, the statistics and the macroeconomics are showing no, the country is doing well, the inflation is down to a single digit, the Dollar to quarter is doing well. But in the actual reality, the reality that is on the ground is very different. People are struggling to have three meals a day. And why it is not an accident, you will see the policies that have been implemented during this government from 2021 to 2022 the IMF came on board, you will see that the corporate sector has gotten more relief compared to the ordinary citizen.<\/p>\n<p>He says Zambians have expressed different emotions over the upcoming polls.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a mixed feeling. Some are excited because they&#8217;ll get to fire and hire. Others just don&#8217;t want to participate and say there&#8217;s nothing we voted in 2021. We thought this government will come and prioritise us and do and make it safe for our people and make it safe for us economically, but that has not happened. So, a lot of them have mixed feelings.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Zambian Economist Kelvin Chisanga says a key factor that need to be looked into even post-election period, it&#8217;s an aspect to do with the cost of living, which has been a key concern.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23660,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-41609","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Zambia prepares to head to the polls","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41609\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41617,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/41609\/revisions\/41617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=41609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}