President Hakainde Hichilema has secured a second five-year term after being declared the winner of Zambia’s presidential election, extending the mandate of a government that has spent its first term attempting to restore macroeconomic stability, restructure the country’s debt and revive investment in its strategically important mining sector.
The Electoral Commission of Zambia declared Hichilema the winner in the early hours of Tuesday, following an election in which the incumbent defeated his principal challenger, Brian Mundubile. Hichilema won approximately 60% of the vote, while Mundubile received about 38%.
The result gives Hichilema, who first assumed office in 2021 after defeating then-president Edgar Lungu, another five years to pursue an economic programme centred on investment, mineral production, fiscal discipline and private-sector growth. His re-election also comes at a moment when Zambia’s economic story is more complicated than either a simple recovery narrative or an account of continuing crisis.
During Hichilema’s first term, Zambia made substantial progress towards resolving a sovereign debt crisis that culminated in its 2020 default. The country became the first to restructure its post-pandemic sovereign debt under the G20 Common Framework, while agreements covering the vast majority of the debt within the restructuring perimeter were reached by late 2025.
The International Monetary Fund completed the sixth and final review of Zambia’s 38-month Extended Credit Facility arrangement in January 2026. The Fund projected economic growth of 5.8% this year, supported by mining, services and a recovery in electricity generation, while cautioning that Zambia’s public debt remained at high risk of distress despite being assessed as sustainable.
The conclusion of the IMF programme does not, however, represent a complete departure from external financial support. Zambia has requested a successor arrangement, with IMF discussions expected to resume following the election. The Fund has maintained that Zambia’s economic outlook is positive but that continued reforms and sound policies remain important.
For Hichilema, the next phase will therefore be less about stabilisation alone and more about whether improved macroeconomic indicators can be translated into broader economic opportunity. Zambia continues to face high levels of poverty and inequality, while households have experienced the effects of elevated living costs and economic pressures that are not necessarily captured by headline growth figures.
That tension was visible throughout the election campaign. Hichilema’s administration has pointed to the restoration of fiscal credibility, debt restructuring and renewed investment as evidence of progress. The opposition, meanwhile, argued that macroeconomic improvements had not sufficiently altered the everyday economic realities confronting many Zambians. Both dimensions are relevant to understanding the country’s political economy.
Copper will remain central to the government’s ambitions. Zambia is Africa’s second-largest copper producer after the Democratic Republic of Congo, and copper remains a major source of export earnings and foreign exchange. Production increased by 8% in 2025 to 890,346 metric tonnes, although the country fell short of its one-million-tonne target. The government has set an even more ambitious objective of reaching three million tonnes of annual production by 2031.
The significance of that ambition extends beyond mining revenues. Zambia is seeking to position itself within a rapidly changing global minerals economy in which copper is increasingly important to electricity networks, renewable energy systems, electric vehicles and other technologies associated with the energy transition. The challenge for Lusaka will be to attract capital while ensuring that greater mineral extraction contributes to domestic value creation, employment, infrastructure and fiscal capacity rather than simply expanding the volume of unprocessed commodities leaving the country.
That question also places Zambia within a wider African debate over the role of critical minerals in development. Across the continent, governments are increasingly seeking to move beyond the traditional model in which Africa supplies raw materials while higher-value processing, technology and manufacturing take place elsewhere. Zambia’s mineral wealth provides an opportunity to pursue greater beneficiation and industrial linkages, although achieving this will require reliable electricity, transport infrastructure, skills development, investment certainty and competitive financing.
Energy is particularly important. Zambia’s economic performance has previously been constrained by drought and electricity shortages, demonstrating how climate vulnerability can quickly become a macroeconomic and industrial constraint. Improved electricity generation, agricultural production and continued mining investment will be important components of the country’s medium-term outlook.
Hichilema’s second term will also be judged against the political environment in which the election was conducted. Vote counting was temporarily suspended after election officials were attacked and ballot papers were reported stolen, before the Electoral Commission announced that counting could resume. Opposition figures subsequently raised concerns about the conduct of the election, while the government rejected allegations of repression and interference.
Those disputes form part of the broader context surrounding the election and should not be separated from its economic implications. Investor confidence depends not only on debt sustainability, growth prospects and mineral policy, but also on institutional credibility, predictable regulation and confidence in the political and legal environment.
The election therefore presents Hichilema with both a mandate and a set of competing expectations. Investors are likely to value policy continuity, particularly after the difficult process of debt restructuring and the renewed interest in Zambia’s copper sector. Yet continuity will also create pressure on the administration to demonstrate that stabilisation is producing tangible gains beyond financial markets and mining investment.
The president has spoken of moving beyond what he describes as the “heavy lifting” of economic stabilisation towards expansion and job creation. His government has also indicated an ambition to double the size of Zambia’s economy.
Whether that ambition is realised will depend on more than the volume of foreign capital entering the country. Zambia will need to broaden productive capacity, deepen domestic enterprise, strengthen agriculture and manufacturing, address electricity constraints and ensure that the benefits of mineral-led growth are distributed more widely.
Hichilema’s second term consequently begins at a different point from his first. In 2021, his central economic challenge was to restore confidence in a country emerging from default, fiscal strain and the effects of the pandemic. In 2026, the task is to convert the foundations established during that period into a more diversified and inclusive economy.
For Zambia, the measure of the next five years may ultimately be less about whether macroeconomic stability was restored than whether that stability can be used to create a broader base of African-owned economic opportunity. The election has provided Hichilema with the political continuity to attempt that transition. The more consequential question is whether his administration can turn that mandate into sustained improvements in productivity, incomes and living standards across the country.
