Zambia’s electoral commission, the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ), has not published full official results from the 13 August 2026 general election more than a month after voting, missing its own 24 August 2026 deadline, according to a legal analysis by law professor Cephas Lumina. The delay does not prove the election was invalid or that declared outcomes were wrong, Lumina writes, but measured against Zambia’s Constitution, electoral legislation, the commission’s past practice and regional standards, it amounts to a serious and avoidable transparency problem at a time when public confidence most needs strengthening.
Roadmap set a 24 August publication window#
Lumina points to Article 45(2) of Zambia’s Constitution, which requires the system administering elections to ensure not only free and fair elections but also independence, accountability, efficiency and transparency, alongside a simple and practical system of voting and tabulating votes. The ECZ is established under Article 229 and mandated to implement the electoral process, conduct elections, regulate candidates and voters, and delimit boundaries. Article 216 requires the commission to remain independent, professional, non-partisan and impartial.
The commission’s Revised 2026 General Election Roadmap set out the following stages:
- Polling: 13 August
- Receipt and verification of results: 15 to 17 August
- Declaration: 17 August
- Publication of election results: 17 to 24 August 2026
Because the ECZ treated declaration and publication as distinct stages, Lumina argues, the fact that a winner was declared cannot on its own explain why the publication stage remains incomplete.
Legal provisions and past practice#
As of mid-September, the ECZ’s General Election Results page still directs users to 2021 and 2016 results rather than 2026 publications, while pages on the commission’s new 2026 results portal continue to display some constituencies as “Results Not Yet Received” with zero votes recorded. In 2021 and 2016, detailed results were published within roughly two weeks, Lumina notes, making the current delay longer than both previous practice and the commission’s own 24 August deadline.
He cites Section 28 of Zambia’s Electoral Process Act, which requires the ECZ to compile and publish an election timetable, and Section 117, which provides that where documents must be made available for inspection or copying, the commission should endeavour to make them available electronically. Read together with sections 72 and 73, which require returning officers to announce and declare results as soon as they are received, these provisions support a clear expectation of prompt and accessible disclosure, even without a fixed universal deadline for every polling-station result.
Strengths and contested decisions#
Lumina acknowledges that the 2026 election process had both strengths and controversies. Zambia’s Constitutional Court dismissed legal challenges over the sequencing of constituency delimitation and voter registration, and separately upheld the ECZ’s authority over nomination requirements. The European Union observer mission described candidate registration as inclusive, transparent and timely.
He is more critical of the commission’s late guidance on ballot-marking, which he says blurred the distinction between the prescribed cross and other marks that could still indicate clear voter intention. He also points to the ECZ’s decision on 14 August to suspend counting and announcement of results nationwide. While the legal power to suspend counting existed under Zambia’s Electoral Process Act, Lumina says observers questioned the transparency surrounding its exercise, with regional bodies recording the uncertainty and mistrust the pause created and pointing to procedural concerns during tabulation.
Comparative and international standards#
Courts in Kenya have emphasised that transparency and verifiability require an auditable record connecting polling station, constituency and national totals. Although Kenya’s statutory scheme differs from Zambia’s, Lumina argues that the underlying constitutional logic of verifiability remains relevant to Zambia’s Article 45. International instruments, including the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance and the United Nations Human Rights Committee’s General Comment No. 25, similarly call for transparent, independently scrutinised electoral processes.
Call for full publication#
Lumina calls on the ECZ to urgently complete the unfinished transparency stage by publishing consolidated presidential, National Assembly, mayoral and councillor results with constituency-level statistics comparable to those published in 2016 and 2021. The commission should also clearly identify any corrections, re-votes or missing returns rather than leaving them to inference.
He says the episode strengthens the case for a formal, inclusive review of the commission’s institutional capacity, involving the ECZ, political parties, civil society, Zambia’s Parliament and electoral experts, though this need not prejudge the validity of the 2026 election itself.
“Article 45 does not treat transparency as optional once ballots are counted,” he wrote, urging the Commission to publish the results in full and let the numbers be examined.
