{"id":42145,"date":"2026-08-11T12:10:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T10:10:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=42145"},"modified":"2026-08-11T12:10:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-11T10:10:30","slug":"zambia-heads-to-the-polls-as-hichilema-seeks-second-term","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/zambia-heads-to-the-polls-as-hichilema-seeks-second-term\/","title":{"rendered":"Zambia heads to the polls as Hichilema seeks second term"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Zambians will head to the polls on Thursday, with President Hakainde Hichilema seeking a second term amid a fragmented opposition.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>The election comes as Zambia works to consolidate its economic recovery following years of financial challenges.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>However, the high cost of living and persistent power shortages remain major concerns for voters.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>So far voters have dominated public debate in the lead-up to the election.<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23533,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-42145","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"","published_date":"","news_description":"Zambians will head to the polls on Thursday","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42145","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":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42146,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42145\/revisions\/42146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=42145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}