President Hakainde Hichilema appears on course for outright win as observers cite violence and a tilted campaign field.

Zambia’s incumbent President Hakainde Hichilema has taken an early lead in the country’s general election, putting him on course for a possible outright first-round victory, as the vote is overshadowed by opposition claims that armed personnel raided his main rival’s home.

Voting began after polls closed on Thursday, and with more than half the country’s constituencies counted on Sunday, Hichilema had won nearly 59 percent of the vote, according to the electoral commission.

His nearest challenger, Brian Mundubile of the opposition National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity (NRPUP), trailed with about a third.

A candidate needs more than 50 percent to avoid a run-off, and final results are expected within days.

However, Hichilema’s lead is being weighed against a campaign international monitors have already called unfair, and a count that has been far from smooth.

Vote tallying was suspended for roughly six hours on Friday after reports of violence against polling staff and allegations that marked ballots had been stolen, a pause the European Union’s observer mission described as “disproportionate”, since only a small fraction of Zambia’s polling stations were affected.

The electoral commission said the threat to the count had since been brought under control.

A 57-year-old polling agent was killed near the capital, Lusaka, on election day, and police arrested nine suspects.

Allegations of armed raid

The NRPUP, contesting the election as part of the opposition Tonse-Pamodzi alliance, has since made a far graver allegation. It said in a statement on Sunday that armed personnel it believes to be members of the Zambian army entered Mundubile’s Lusaka home on Friday night, firing live ammunition and wounding a member of parliament, before forcibly removing several people whose whereabouts the party says remain unconfirmed.

Mundubile said there was “no political language that can sanitise what happened”, but he appealed to his supporters not to retaliate.

The NRPUP called for “urgent regional and international engagement” with the government to provide answers about the alleged incident.

Zambian authorities have not responded to the claim at the time of writing.

Officials from Hichilema’s governing United Party for National Development (UPND) have previously accused the opposition of exaggerating irregularities to cast doubt on a legitimate result.

The EU’s monitoring mission said its observers witnessed a person being seized by armed personnel on the morning of August 10.

In preliminary findings released on Saturday, the mission described the election as competitive but skewed towards the incumbent, pointing to heavy bias in state media coverage and a blurring of government business with campaigning.

Zambia has transferred power peacefully through elections since returning to multiparty politics in 1991, and Hichilema won a landslide victory in 2021.

His first term has coincided with a return to economic growth, though more than 70 percent of the country’s 22 million people still live on less than $3 a day, according to the World Bank, despite Zambia’s substantial reserves of copper and other minerals.