Zambia opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema has emerged as the winner in the Aug, 12 presidential election, beating incumbent President Edgar Lungu.
Hichilema won the election with 2,810,757 of the votes while Lungu got 1,814,201.
Electoral Commission of Zambia Chairperson Justice Esau Chulu made the declaration in the early hours of Monday after the full and thorough scrutiny of votes from 155 out 156 constituencies.
Opposition UPND alliance candidate Hichilema, who was contesting for presidency for the sixth time, managed an early lead over president Edgar Lungu in an election widely considered as a test of Zambia’s democracy stability.
Although both men urged people to vote peacefully, violence flared up between supporters of Lungu’s Patriotic Front party and Hichilema’s United Party for National Development. Both candidates however called for calm amid fears that violence may erupt.
Internet access to several social media platforms was restricted in what looks like a government attempts to stop people talking about the vote until official results are announced.
President Lungu voted early on Thursday and urged people to stay at home and “wait patiently and peacefully for the outcome”.
“I hear some politicians are advocating for people to hang around the polling centres, that will just bring chaos,” said Lungu.
“I have voted. I am going home and will listen to the radio, newspapers, television and wait for the results to be declared. That’s what a good citizen does. Please don’t hang around polling stations, you will just cause unnecessary anarchy,” he added.
HAKAINDE HICHILEMA’S BIOGRAPHY
Hakainde Hichilema is a politician and businessman who was born on June 4, 1962 in Monze, Zambia. He is a father of three children (Miyanda, Habwela and Chikonka) and is married to Mutinta Hichilema. Also known as HH, Hichilema spent his formative years in Southern province of Zambia, where he attended local primary schools and pursued high school education at Kalomo Secondary School. Upon completion of high school education, he was admitted in the School of Humanities and Social Science at the University of Zambia where he graduated with a BA in Economics and Business Administration in 1986. He thereafter pursued an MBA in Finance and Business Strategy at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
HH had an illustrious career as a business and management expert that culminated in his rising to the position of Chief Executive Officer of Coopers and Lybrand (C&L) at the age of 26 years and later he become CEO for Grant Thornton (GT) for 12 years. Both C&L and GT are leading international professional services firms providing corporate finance, accounting, auditing, corporate recovery, management consultancy and tax advisory services to several reputable clients. These firms are member organizations of C&L International and GT International respectively which operate in more than 130 countries worldwide.
HH has been and remains one of the leading lights in business with wide experience in Zambia, Southern Africa, United Kingdom and other countries at operational and executive management levels. He served/serves on numerous boards of corporate entities including; as Chairman of the Board of Directors – Barclays Bank Zambia Plc., Sun International (Z) Ltd, Africa Trade Insurance a multilateral Pan African organization based in Kenya, Greenbelt Fertilizers Limited, Media Trust Fund and Export Development Programme II.
He was member of the Board of Directors of ; Zambia Investment Limited, Seedco Zambia Limited, African Life Financial Services, Zambezi Nickel (Bermuda) Limited, Westlake Investment Ltd. (Mauritius), Zambia Association of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (ZACCI), Zambia Business Forum, C&L’s Africa Governing board, C&L International’s Governance Committee, GT International Governance board, Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (Smelterco) Limited and he served on boards of eight other companies.
HH has been active in the business community and has a strong high level private and public sector network locally and internationally. Over years HH has participated in community work such as building clinics, schools, livestock dip tanks, dams, boreholes and founding a cultural fund that finances the revival of cultural ceremonies in Zambia.
HH retired in 2006 to pursue community service initiatives and within a short period of retiring from the corporate world he entered active politics as a member of the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND), a liberal political party whose formation he supported as a technocrat. Following the death of the UPND founding President Anderson Kambela Mazoka, he was elected as the party’s new President. Within 50 days of becoming President of the UPND, he was elected as the flag bearer of the United Democratic Alliance, an alliance of three opposition political parties. Since entering politics HH has been arrested more than a dozen times.
He has since participated in five elections each time increasing his tally of votes. In the recent 2016 elections, he narrowly lost the Presidency to Edgar Chagwa Lungu who won the disputed elections by about 13,000 votes to garner the 50 plus one threshold.
In a move seen as effort to tighten Edgar Lungu’s grip on power, a state of emergency was declared and HH was arrested on trumped charges on suspicion of treason (over an alleged traffic offense in a convoy he was just a passenger). He spent 127 days mostly in solitary confinement at the country’s Mukobeko Maximum Prison – that house death row inmates and those serving life sentences. His treason charges were dropped through efforts of the Zambians from all walks of life, church in Zambia, former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Baroness Patricia Scotland the Commonwealth Secretary General and politicians abroad.
HH is a focused politician, driven by his unwavering desire to see Zambia realize its full potential by harnessing its valuable resources, people and natural resources, to improve the quality of life for all its citizens. Anchored on his respect for equality of all citizens, rule of law and the democratic rights for every citizen to unconditional association and free speech, he has and continues to exhibit leadership and political maturity to navigate all political challenges thrown his way in the ever tighten political space in the country.
His fight to uplift the standards of living for all Zambians has no limits of personal sacrifice. All for the love of his fellow Zambians, that he wishes to one day experience the Zambia they all aspire to and envision.
A Zambia that guarantees present and future economic well-being for all its people– east, south, north and west. A truly free Zambia, where every Zambian is motivated to participate and contribute to the fulfillment of its economic agenda free of fear of persecution or harassment. A truly free Zambia in every sense– economically politically, socially and religious beliefs.