SADC Troika Considers Zambia’s Post-Electoral Crisis

SADC Troika Considers Zambia’s Post-Electoral Crisis

The Southern African Development Community’s security organ is preparing to take up Zambia’s post-election crisis, after receiving a preliminary report from its election observer mission.

King Mswati III of Eswatini, who took over the chairmanship of the SADC Organ on Politics, Defence and Security Cooperation Troika last month, is expected to convene member states to consider the situation. Zambia’s main opposition leader remains in jail, and a former Cabinet minister is dead following a military raid conducted during the vote count.

Zambia held its general election on August 13. Voting passed off peacefully, but the aftermath brought allegations of vote manipulation and result tampering, including claims that the Zambia Army was deployed inside counting centres and that results were altered under military supervision.

On August 14, a military raid on the Lusaka home of opposition leader Brian Mundubile left former Minister of Transport and Communications Mutotwe Kafwaya dead. Several of Mundubile’s colleagues were arrested in the same operation, among them UNIP president and former Botswana bishop Trevor Mwamba, and former Law Association of Zambia president George Chisanga.

Mundubile and his running mate, Makebi Zulu, took refuge inside the United Nations building in Lusaka after the raid. UN Secretary-General António Guterres sent a Special Envoy from New York to negotiate a resolution.

The UN sought safe passage for the two men, or their transfer to a third-party embassy in Lusaka. President Hakainde Hichilema rejected both options, demanding they surrender to police, who were investigating alleged security breaches and claims that the opposition had formed a militia.

Five days after the raid, Secretary to Cabinet Patrick Kangwa confirmed Kafwaya’s death. He said Mundubile had formed a militia intending to seize power illegally.

Mundubile and Zulu were handed over on August 27 to the Eight Church Mother Bodies at the Anglican Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Lusaka, who surrendered them to police. Both now face treason charges and are held at Mukobeko Maximum Correctional Facility in Kabwe, roughly 200km from Lusaka, awaiting trial.

Soldiers sealed Zambia’s courts during the constitutional window for filing election challenges, blocking Mundubile and civil society groups from lodging a petition through normal channels.

Chief Justice Mumba Malila later disclosed that a petition had reached him regardless, filed by private mail. He named former Law Association of Zambia president Linda Kasonde and civil society leader Brebner Changala as the petitioners. Malila said the filing method was unusual but that he would use his constitutional powers to refer the matter to the Constitutional Court.

The Constitution requires election challenges to be resolved before a new president is inaugurated. Government proceeded with the inauguration regardless. Hichilema was sworn in for a second term on September 1 at National Heroes Stadium in Lusaka, with the Kasonde-Changala petition still before the Constitutional Court.