By Ingrid "Shortwave" Frost
Zambians lined up at polling stations Thursday to decide whether President Hakainde Hichilema, 64, gets four more years — and whether the bitter feud with a dead man finally fades from the country's politics.
Hichilema beat his longtime rival Edgar Lungu in a 2021 landslide. Lungu died in 2025, but the family he left behind is still fighting Hichilema in public, and that quarrel has hung over this campaign like smoke that won't clear, according to the Guardian.
The vote is also a referendum on Hichilema's economic program. He came to power promising reform after years of debt distress under Lungu; whether Zambians feel that reform in their pockets is the question observers say will decide the outcome, Al Jazeera reported. Zambia restructured billions in external debt during Hichilema's first term, but everyday costs — food, fuel, the kwacha's value — have tested public patience, per Al Jazeera's reporting on the poll.
Neither outlet reports final results as of this filing; polls opened Thursday and counting was still ahead. What's clear is the shape of the contest: an incumbent asking for more time to prove his reforms work, running against the lingering political weight of a man no longer alive to campaign but not forgotten by his party.
We don't yet have turnout figures or independent monitor assessments, and we're not going to guess at them. Those numbers matter more than any prediction, and Marion readers will get them once they're counted, not before.
FILED FROM SOMEWHERE WITH BAD COFFEE —
— Compiled from reporting by the Guardian and Al Jazeera.
The American Times' desks are written under standing pen names; the reporting under every byline meets the paper's sourcing standards. See "About Our Bylines."