Keypoints:
- Government says 11 people were apprehended
- Mundubile describes operation as attack on him
- Hichilema widens lead after 135 constituencies
ZAMBIA’S disputed presidential election has taken a sharper turn after the government said 11 people were apprehended during a security operation involving opposition challenger Brian Mundubile, directly challenging his account that heavily armed personnel raided his residence in an attempt on his life.
The competing versions now sit at the centre of a wider battle over the credibility of the August 13 election. President Hakainde Hichilema has widened his lead as counting continues, while European Union observers have described the contest as competitive but conducted on an uneven playing field.
Government gives new raid account
The government said in a statement released late on Sunday that Mundubile was present when 11 people were apprehended and alleged that shots were fired from the premises towards law-enforcement officers, resulting in an exchange of fire.
It further alleged that some of those detained possessed high-grade military weapons, ammunition and other materials intended for an armed insurrection, and said they had been under surveillance for months.
Six people were named as being in custody, including a spokesperson for Mundubile, while the others were described as senior members of political parties. Reuters reported the government account on Monday.
The allegations are extremely serious and Africa Briefing has not independently verified them.
They differ sharply from Mundubile’s account of the events.
Mundubile says soldiers opened fire
Speaking to the AfricaHere&NOW podcast, Mundubile said between 70 and 80 army officers forced their way into his residence after breaking down the gate.
He said people inside tried to find places to hide as the officers moved through the property before reaching the bedroom where he was with his wife and former minister Mutotwe Kafwaya.
Mundubile alleged that the officers immediately opened fire, shooting Kafwaya twice and firing twice in his own direction.
‘I don’t know how I survived,’ he said.
Africa Briefing has not independently verified his description of the shooting.
The government had previously rejected the allegation that Kafwaya was shot by the army.
The rival accounts mean the precise circumstances surrounding the operation remain disputed.
Missing allies were in custody
Mundubile had initially told AfricaHere&NOW that several people who had been with him could not be accounted for following the incident.
Among those he identified was his presidential spokesperson, George Chisanga, along with other associates and members of his team.
The government’s latest statement provides at least a partial explanation, saying several opposition figures were in custody following the security operation.
Opposition representatives had been demanding information about people from Mundubile’s inner circle whom they said had either been detained or disappeared.
Mundubile also told the podcast that he and his family were removed from the residence, taken to police headquarters and later to what he described as an intelligence command centre before he was eventually released with his wife and children.
Hichilema stretches his lead
The political confrontation is unfolding as Hichilema moves further ahead in the presidential count.
With results announced from 135 of Zambia’s 226 constituencies, Hichilema had received 1,544,140 votes, or about 58.87 percent of valid votes counted, according to Electoral Commission figures reported on Monday.
Mundubile had 1,030,662 votes, leaving the incumbent ahead by 513,478 votes with 91 constituencies still to report.
Reuters confirmed on Monday that counting was continuing and that partial results continued to show Hichilema in the lead.
A candidate must secure more than 50 percent of valid votes cast nationally to win the presidency without a second round.
The election has become a major test of whether Hichilema’s macroeconomic gains following Zambia’s debt crisis have translated into sufficient improvements for households struggling with living costs.
Africa Briefing has previously examined how the election is testing Hichilema’s economic recovery record.
Mundubile challenges ballot custody
Mundubile’s complaints extend beyond the operation at his residence.
He has questioned the role of soldiers and intelligence personnel in the handling and movement of electoral materials, particularly the Gen 20 documents that record results at polling-station level.
In his AfricaHere&NOW interview, Mundubile argued that the chain of custody should follow established electoral procedures and said possession of the documents by unauthorised security personnel created concerns about possible interference.
‘This election cannot yield credible results,’ he said.
AP separately reported similar allegations by Mundubile that military personnel had taken control of some counting locations and that ballot boxes had been removed. AP noted that he supplied no evidence supporting those accusations.
Mundubile had also previously claimed that his alliance’s own tabulation showed he had won the election, without providing evidence. The ECZ warned candidates against declaring victory before the official process was completed.
EU finds an uneven playing field
The preliminary assessment from the European Union Election Observation Mission adds important independent context to the dispute.
The EU mission said Zambia’s election offered voters a genuine and competitive choice, but found that restrictions on campaigning and advantages enjoyed by the incumbent created an ‘uneven playing field’.
It also found state-owned media coverage heavily favoured the ruling UPND. Its monitoring showed that Hichilema and his party dominated election-related airtime on the public broadcaster, while Mundubile received minimal coverage.
The observers also recorded concerns surrounding the activities of security forces. On August 10, EU observers said they personally witnessed an individual being seized by armed personnel, an incident they said appeared to lend credibility to concerns expressed by stakeholders about political targeting.
But the EU assessment was not uniformly critical.
Voting itself judged transparent
The mission found that election day was generally calm and that voting was efficiently managed in the polling stations its observers visited.
It described ballot counting as transparent and said party and candidate agents were able to watch the process. Party agents were present in 99 percent of polling stations observed by the EU mission and were able to monitor without restrictions.
That distinction matters.
The observers raised significant concerns over the broader political environment and campaign conditions, but their preliminary findings do not support a blanket conclusion that voting and polling-station counting were fraudulent.
Questions now centre increasingly on the subsequent tabulation, security interventions and handling of electoral materials.
Count was halted after violence
The ECZ itself temporarily suspended counting on August 14 after reporting violence against election officials and the theft of marked ballot papers.
The process resumed around six hours later after the commission said the security threat had been contained.
Africa Briefing reported the disruption in Zambia halts vote count after violence.
The deployment of soldiers and riot police during the interruption was unusual for a country whose national elections and transfers of political power have generally remained peaceful since the return to multiparty democracy in 1991.
Credibility battle intensifies
Zambia is therefore confronting two overlapping political battles.
The first is numerical: whether Hichilema’s growing lead survives the remaining constituency declarations and carries him beyond the threshold for an outright second-term victory.
The second concerns confidence.
Mundubile is demanding answers over electoral materials and security-force involvement. The government, meanwhile, is accusing people associated with the opposition of possessing military weapons and preparing for armed insurrection.
Neither set of serious allegations should be accepted without scrutiny.
The EU findings further complicate the picture by documenting genuine weaknesses in campaign fairness and political freedoms while also finding that the voting and counting processes it directly observed were largely calm and transparent.
For Zambia, the credibility of the final result may therefore depend not simply on who finishes with the most votes, but on whether institutions can convincingly account for what happened around the election once the counting is complete.
Watch the full interview
Hear Brian Mundubile give his full account of the alleged raid on his residence, his concerns over the handling of electoral materials and why he is challenging the credibility of Zambia’s election.
Watch the full interview on the AfricaHere&NOW podcast.
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