19/08/2026
Potential Election Petitions: What the SEDROBZ Tracker Team Is Monitoring
As Zambia moves into the post-election period following the 2026 General Election, attention is now turning to the possibility of electoral disputes being taken before the courts.
Our Election Petitions Tracker is monitoring publicly reported indications that candidates or political parties may challenge election results. At this stage, these should be understood as potential petitions, not confirmed cases. A candidate's rejection of a result or announcement that they intend to seek legal redress does not necessarily mean that a petition will ultimately be filed.
The Tracker is monitoring potential challenges at all three electoral levels: presidential, parliamentary and local government.
At the presidential level, Brian Mundubile of NRUP and the Tonse Pamodzi Alliance have publicly indicated an intention to challenge the presidential results. Other presidential candidates have expressed concerns about the results or indicated that legal options are being considered, and these developments continue to be monitored.
At parliamentary level, several candidates have publicly disputed their results and indicated an intention to seek legal redress. These include candidates in constituencies such as Matero, Roma, Zambezi Central, Kabwe Central, Bwana Mkubwa and Chipata Central. Some of these contests are particularly closely contested, while others involve allegations concerning the accuracy or alteration of results recorded on Gen-20 forms, electoral irregularities, violence or other procedural concerns.
The Tracker is also monitoring elections at the local government level. Although publicly reported information about potential local-government petitions is currently more limited, the Tracker team is actively looking for indications of challenges at these levels. This is important because disputes arising from local-government elections can be easily overlooked when attention is concentrated on the presidential and parliamentary contests.
Our approach is deliberately broader than simply counting announced petitions. We are distinguishing between results that have been disputed, possible legal challenges, publicly confirmed intentions to petition, and petitions that have actually been filed. This allows us to track the progression from electoral grievance to formal litigation.
As the statutory filing periods unfold, the Tracker will verify which anticipated challenges ultimately become formal petitions, where they are filed, the grounds relied upon, and how the courts resolve them.
The objective is not simply to count election petitions, but to build a comprehensive picture of where electoral disputes emerge, what gives rise to them, and how Zambia's electoral dispute-resolution system responds to them.
The Election Petitions Tracker will continue to update this picture as new information and court filings become available.
