Fourteen vacancies, one date: Mandevu, Lumezi North and Mbala vote again on 5 November — with August's ghosts on the ballot

The 2026 general election is not finished. On Thursday, 5 November, voters return to the polls in Mandevu and Lumezi North for parliamentary seats, in Mbala for a mayor, and in eleven wards across Luapula, Muchinga, North-Western, Western and Southern provinces — fourteen contests that were left open by violence, death and administrative failure in August. ECZ Chief Electoral Officer Brown Kasaro announced the calendar at the weekend: nominations on Thursday, 8 October, campaigns from Saturday, 10 October until 18:00 hours on 4 November, polling from 06:00 to 18:00 on the day.

Mandevu is the contest with the scar tissue. On 18 August, days after polling, unknown individuals stormed the constituency's totalling centre, attacked staff, destroyed result transmission kits and fled with election documents; ballot papers were later found dumped in drainages, some burnt. The returning officer was left unable to declare a result for one of Lusaka Province's key constituencies, and on 28 August the commission resolved to hold the seat's election afresh. The decision has its own litigation trail: the Foundation for Democratic Process and the Anti-Voter Apathy Project backed the fresh poll as consistent with electoral standards where materials are compromised, while the Zambia Civil Liberties Union challenged the commission's authority outright — "there is no law that mandates the Electoral Commission of Zambia to cancel and conduct fresh parliamentary elections" — and politician Peter Sinkamba argued the fresh poll should extend to Mandevu's mayoral and council seats too. The ECZ's answer is the narrower ballot: parliament only.

Lumezi North and Mbala carry quieter grief. The NRPUP's Lumezi North candidate, Clement Mwale, died in the early hours of 16 July, after nominations had closed; under Constitutional Amendment No. 13 of 2025 the death of a nominated candidate obliges the commission to cancel the poll there, and the sponsoring party had 30 days to field a replacement for the fresh race against the UPND's Anderson Banda and the Leadership Movement's Nebby Manda. In Mbala, mayor-elect Steward Simutenda — elected on the NRPUP ticket on 13 August — died around midnight on 18 August after an illness, within days of winning. The eleven ward vacancies, from Lungwishi in Mansa to Simanwa in Choma, arose from deaths of nominated and elected candidates, uncontested wards, and nominations nullified by the Local Government Elections Tribunal.

The commission has set the economics and the perimeter of the contest: nomination fees of K17,000 for men, K14,000 for women, K10,500 for youths and K10,000 for persons with disabilities at parliamentary and mayoral level; parties capped at ten accredited monitors each, five at the collation centre; the public kept 400 metres from nomination centres, by law. The ruling party has read the date as opportunity — "this is another opportunity for us to appeal to the citizens and ask them to give us the mandate to continue delivering development," said UPND deputy spokesperson Elvis Nkandu. The opposition will read it as a referendum the government did not intend to hold.

Either way, 5 November is now the busiest single date left in the electoral calendar — and Mandevu's fresh poll will be watched furthest beyond its boundaries. A constituency whose ballots ended up burnt in a drainage gets a second election under the eyes of every observer mission still in the country. The ECZ, which has spent the post-election season defending petitions, now has to stage the one contest where its own failures are part of the record. Fourteen seats are at stake formally. Informally, one more thing is: whether a fresh election can be run cleanly in the place the old one was destroyed.

Sources: Times of Zambia, "ECZ sets Nov 5 for by-elections in Mandevu, others" (27 Sep 2026); Lusaka Times, "Mandevu by-election set for 5 November polls" (27 Sep 2026); Diamond TV, "ECZ sets November 5 for Mbala, Lumezi and Mandevu by-elections" (26 Sep 2026); News Diggers (26 Sep 2026); MUVI TV on fees and accreditation (26 Sep 2026); ECZ statements (Aug–Sep 2026).