{"id":42812,"date":"2026-08-17T09:37:47","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T07:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=42812"},"modified":"2026-08-17T09:37:47","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T07:37:47","slug":"zambias-hichilema-leads-presidential-vote-count","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/zambias-hichilema-leads-presidential-vote-count\/","title":{"rendered":"Zambia\u2019s Hichilema leads presidential vote count"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">Zambia\u2019s President Hakainde Hichilema was well ahead in counting for national elections on \u200bSunday with nearly half the constituencies declared, \u200cthe electoral commission said.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Hichilema had 54.82% or 1,056,812 of the declared votes, figures showed, putting him on \u200btrack for re-election without a second-round runoff \u200bif he keeps the overall majority.<\/p>\n<p>His main \u2060challenger, Brian Mundubile, was in second place \u200bwith 43% or 830,841 of the declared votes, \u200bwith 105 out of 226 constituencies announced by around 1500 GMT.<\/p>\n<p>The presidential vote held alongside parliamentary and local elections \u200bon Thursday \u00a0is seen as a test \u200bof whether Hichilema\u2019s economic gains since a pandemic-era debt \u200ccrisis \u2060are enough to win him a second term in Africa\u2019s second-largest copper producer after the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).<\/p>\n<p>The Electoral Commission of Zambia temporarily halted \u200bvote counting \u200bon Friday, \u2060citing violence against officials and the theft of ballot papers.<\/p>\n<p>Zambia\u2019s police \u200bhave denied a report by opposition leader \u200bMundubile\u2019s camp that he was arrested and detained.<\/p>\n<p>If no presidential candidate gets at least 50%, a second round \u2060vote \u200bwill take place within 37 \u200bdays of the initial poll.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u2014Reuters\u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":23533,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[26],"class_list":["post-42812","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The presidential vote held alongside parliamentary and local elections \u200bon Thursday.","published_date":"","news_description":"The presidential vote held alongside parliamentary and local elections \u200bon Thursday.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42812","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\/42812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42813,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/42812\/revisions\/42813"}],"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=42812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=42812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}