President Hakainde Hichilema has been declared the winner of Zambia’s general election with 60.5 percent of the vote, securing a second term and extending a period of relative political stability that has become increasingly rare among his regional peers.
The result places Zambia in sharp contrast with several other developments across the region this year, from a resurgence of piracy off the Somali coast to unresolved tensions in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where the first ceasefire verification inspectors only recently arrived at Minembwe, nine months after the Doha framework agreement was signed in November 2025.
Hichilema’s re-election comes as several African economies pursue major infrastructure partnerships, including Tanzania’s newly inaugurated $2.9 billion Julius Nyerere hydropower plant and Ethiopia’s $12.5 billion new airport project, both financed in significant part through partnerships with Chinese and Egyptian contractors. Zambia itself, as a major copper producer at the centre of the global energy transition, has increasingly positioned itself as a stable investment destination in a region where that reputation is not easily earned.
For the Zambezi Institute, Zambia’s outcome is a reminder that political stability remains one of Africa’s most under-priced assets: it is what allows long-horizon infrastructure and investment commitments, of the kind now reshaping East and Southern Africa’s energy and transport corridors, to actually be made.
