Zambia election campaign continues amid lingering feud after death of former president Edgar Lungu

Zambians went to the polls on August 13, 2026, to decide who leads the southern African country in the next term, with President Hakainde Hichilema seeking a second term. The campaign has been marked by renewed attention to a long-running personal and political rivalry with Edgar Lungu, the former president who, the campaign context described by The Guardian, died in 2025, leaving supporters and opponents still contesting the meaning of his legacy as voting begins.

Hichilema, 64, has framed his re-election bid as a continuation of the administration he took over after winning the 2021 presidential election. In that contest, Lungu was his main challenger and Hichilema prevailed by a wide margin, according to the account of the race and the rivalry presented in the reporting. Despite the passage of years since the 2021 vote, the feud between the two camps is still being cited as an organizing element for parts of the electorate and for campaign rhetoric.

The Guardian’s report characterizes the present contest as being shaped by what it describes as the lingering “ghost” of Lungu, specifically in how his family remains involved in the broader political narrative. While Hichilema leads the government, the late former president’s supporters and family members are portrayed as maintaining a continuing insistence on addressing grievances associated with the earlier years of political conflict, which has carried into the current election period.

Beyond symbolism, political tensions in Zambia can affect how parties mobilize voters and how supporters interpret public statements from rivals. In the reporting, the current presidential contest is not portrayed as a simple policy contest but as one in which personal animosities and unresolved disputes from the previous power transition remain salient. That dynamic can influence turnout patterns in communities that identify closely with either the incumbent or the Lungu camp, particularly where families have been drawn into the dispute through public criticism or political engagement.

Hichilema’s campaign for a second term arrives under the pressure that the previous presidential contest was decisive and that the rivalry has outlasted the immediate post-2021 period. The Guardian ties the present atmosphere to the death of Lungu in 2025, presenting his absence not as an end to the contest but as a factor that sustains political mobilization around his supporters’ interpretation of events since he lost office.

Election days typically elevate questions about order and safety, since competition between political camps can raise the risk of intimidation or confrontation at rallies, transport hubs, and polling sites. The reporting does not provide specific incidents of violence in the account cited here, but it emphasizes that the personal feud remains part of the campaign environment, which can affect how officials, security personnel, and electoral workers manage public behavior during voting.

As results are announced, the central question will be whether the electorate views the Hichilema-Lungu divide primarily through the record of governance since 2021, or through unresolved political grievances connected to Lungu’s family and the broader rivalry. For now, the immediate focus for voters and election observers is the voting process itself, including how parties conduct campaigning and how the political dispute is expressed in the public sphere while the ballot is open.

If the feud continues to play a role after the vote, it may shape the governing agenda in the next term, including how the administration handles investigations, court matters, or political reconciliation steps that supporters demand from both sides. In the meantime, the next set of events will depend on official electoral procedures for tabulation and announcement of results, and on how the parties’ statements evolve from campaigning into post-election positions.