Nearly twelve weeks after Zambians voted, the European Union's observers have delivered their last word on the election. The final report of the EU Election Observation Mission, published on Tuesday 3 November, runs to 13 recommendations, eight of them labelled priority, and its conclusion is a balanced one: the election offered a genuine choice and was competently run on the day, but the conditions around it were not equal. The government's response, issued through the Minister of Information and Media, Elvis Nkandu, accepts the praise and contests much of the rest.
The mission was in the country from 29 June to 1 September at the government's invitation, led by the Member of the European Parliament Michael McNamara, and deployed 100 observers from 26 EU member states, Canada and Norway on election day. Its observers watched 39 polling stations open, voting in 419, counting in 38 and tabulation at 64 totalling centres.
What the report found
On the positive side the report says the amended legal framework provided a broadly adequate basis for democratic elections, that the Electoral Commission of Zambia was well prepared, that candidate registration was inclusive and transparent and that voter registration used a new online portal. Election day itself was calm. The voters' roll certified on 4 May held 8,786,300 names, a quarter more than in 2021, though the Commission reached only half of its target of 3.5 million new registrations.
The criticism is directed at the surroundings. Reforms enacted about three months before polling created uncertainty; a law on political parties, which the Constitutional Court had ordered within 12 months, remains unenacted, and there is still no political finance law. The report records police bias, including disproportionate use of tear gas and blocked events, violence by what it calls groups traditionally associated with political movements that caused at least two deaths, and a presidential campaign timetable from which the President and Vice-President were exempt while other candidates could visit each province once, for five days. Women were about nine per cent of candidates; one of the 14 presidential candidates was a woman.
The mission's media monitoring is the sharpest finding. It describes the coverage of the state broadcaster as overwhelmingly biased, recording that the UPND received 96.2 per cent of political airtime on ZNBC television and 90.5 per cent on ZNBC radio, amid what it calls self-censorship linked to the cyber laws.
Two episodes after polling day carry the heaviest language. On 14 August the Commission suspended counting and the announcement of results across the country for about six hours; the report says the scale of the security concerns given for the decision was insufficiently explained, and that observers then saw tabulation deteriorate, with procedural omissions and weak safeguards. The Commission declared the presidential result on 18 August but, the report says, no full set of results has been posted publicly at polling-station level. The courts were then physically closed from 24 to 26 August, which took two of the seven days the Constitution allows for filing a presidential petition.
curtailed transparency and access to justice
— Michael McNamara, Chief Observer, on the suspension of counting and the subsequent court closures, in the mission's statement of 3 November 2026
The eight priority recommendations are to revise the electoral law well before an election, to guarantee transparency throughout the process, to protect freedom of assembly and equal campaign opportunity and to end the Commission's role in issuing campaign timetables, to turn ZNBC into a genuine public service broadcaster, to align the cyber laws with international commitments on free expression, to guarantee observers unhindered access, to guarantee due process in electoral disputes, and to keep tabulation transparent with prompt online posting of polling-station results. The report notes that of the 22 recommendations its predecessor made in 2021, only one, an access-to-information law, was fully implemented.
The government's reply
Nkandu's statement, carried by the Zambian Observer on Tuesday, welcomes the mission's findings that voters had a competitive choice, that polling staff were efficient, that the legal framework was broadly adequate and that the Commission was well prepared. It then argues that the government was not given enough opportunity to supply the historical, institutional and security context, which it says leaves some findings incomplete.
On the late amendments, the statement says changing electoral law in an election year is not unprecedented in Zambia, citing reforms under Kenneth Kaunda, Frederick Chiluba's in 1996 and Edgar Lungu's in 2016, which introduced the 50-per-cent-plus-one threshold and the running mate, and it places the 2026 changes, including proportional representation, in that line. On ZNBC it says the broadcaster sells airtime to all parties on equal commercial terms, that its statutory duty includes informing citizens about the work of government, and that coverage of a sitting president is long-standing practice. On the security operations it says observers cannot see intelligence or law-enforcement investigations, and that some political actors and their supporters were under investigation for serious alleged crimes. It describes the media environment as vibrant and pluralistic and restates the government's commitment to constitutional rights.
The mission's statement says the EU stands ready to support Zambia in implementing the recommendations. The full report is published on the website of the European External Action Service.
Confirmed vs. alleged
Confirmed: The final report and its 13 recommendations were published on 3 November 2026 by the EU EOM; the airtime figures, the six-hour suspension of counting on 14 August and the court closure of 24 to 26 August are the mission's own findings, as set out in the report and its statement. The government's response is a statement by Information Minister Elvis Nkandu carried by the Zambian Observer on 3 November.
Alleged or unverified: Whether the Electoral Commission or the courts will respond to the report separately; whether any of the recommendations will be taken up by the government or Parliament, which the government's statement does not address; and the mission's characterisation of the reasons for the 14 August suspension, which the Commission has not answered in the reporting read today.
Sources: European External Action Service, “European Union election observation mission publishes final report with 13 recommendations; the EU stands ready to support Zambia in their implementation” (3 Nov 2026); EU Election Observation Mission Zambia 2026, “General Elections 13 August 2026 — Final Report” (3 Nov 2026); The Brussels Times, “EU report flags Zambia's campaign inequalities, calls for urgent electoral reforms” (3 Nov 2026); Zambian Observer, “EU Observer Mission Final Report; Elvis Nkandu defends the army, ZNBC and ECZ!” (3 Nov 2026).