08/09/2026
Zambia cannot afford to leave Women behind in Parliament
The numbers should be a wake-up call!
Analysis by MIWOZ
ZAMBIA has expanded its Parliament, but women’s representation remains stubbornly low.
Following the 2026 elections, 32 women have won constituency seats among the 224 declared parliamentary results so far (Two parliamentary seats are yet to be determined) , compared with 192 men. Women therefore, account for approximately 14.3% of the declared constituency winners.
This is happening against the backdrop of a major expansion of Parliament. The delimitation exercise increased the number of constituency seats from 156 to 226, an additional 70 constituencies. Yet the expansion has not produced a corresponding breakthrough for women.
The historical picture is equally telling.
In 2016, 26 women were directly elected to Parliament, while the National Assembly ultimately had 30 women out of 167 members representing 18 percent.
In 2021, 20 women were directly elected. By September 2021, the number of women in Parliament had risen to 25 out of 166 members, representing about 15.%
So the issue is not simply whether the number of women has increased or decreased.
The bigger problem is that women remain dramatically underrepresented in Zambia’s law-making institution.
And the expansion of Parliament makes this question even more important.
The amended constitutional framework provides for 226 constituency MPs and 40 proportional-representation MPs of which 20 will be women, 15 youth and five persons with disabilities.
If the 20 women’s PR seats are filled as provided for, the 32 women elected from constituencies would rise to 52 women among 266 elected MPs.
That would put women’s representation at approximately 19.5%.
It would be progress, but it would still not be parity.
And this is where Zambia must have an honest conversation.
Why are so few women participating and winning constituency elections?
Are political parties putting women in winnable seats, or merely giving them opportunities to contest?
Does campaign financing favour men?
How much do political violence, intimidation and harassment discourage women from participating?
What role do family responsibilities, social attitudes and unequal access to political networks play?
And what are political parties actually doing to remove these barriers?
The answers cannot be found in election statistics alone.
They require serious research, political accountability and deliberate action.
For Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) like the MEDIA INITIATIVE FOR WOMEN IN ZAMBIA (MIWOZ), political parties, government, the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ), the media and gender advocates, the 2026 figures should be more than numbers on a spreadsheet.
They should be a call to action.
The introduction of MPR system provides an important opportunity to increase women's presence in Parliament. But PR should not become a reason to stop asking why women continue to struggle to win constituency seats.
A representative democracy cannot be measured only by whether women are allowed to contest elections.
It must also be measured by whether women have a genuine and equal chance of winning.
Zambia cannot continue to speak about gender equality while women remain a small minority in the institution that makes the laws governing the country.
The question is no longer whether women can participate in politics.
The question is: what are we going to do to ensure they can win?
