NHP Questions ECZ Data Ahead of 2026 Elections

NHP Questions ECZ Data Ahead of 2026 Elections

The New Heritage Party has raised concerns over the credibility of Zambia’s electoral process, citing what it describes as a significant discrepancy in voter registration figures released by the Electoral Commission of Zambia.

In a statement, party president Chishala Kateka stated that her party believes the ECZ is compromised and may not be able to deliver transparent, credible, free, and fair elections if unresolved issues surrounding voter data persist.

Kateka said the NHP has, since the last general election, repeatedly raised concerns regarding the composition and conduct of the ECZ. She stated that these concerns were communicated through multiple channels, including public statements, correspondence with the Zambia Centre for Inter Party Dialogue, engagements with the Minister of Justice, and a direct meeting with ECZ officials. According to Kateka, none of these engagements produced corrective action.

She said the party’s latest concerns stem from inconsistencies between voter registration figures announced publicly by the ECZ and figures later published in official ECZ documentation.

Kateka referred to a speech titled Update on Final Statistics of the Mass Registration of Voters, delivered by ECZ Chief Executive Officer Brown Kasaro. She stated that provisional figures presented on page six of that speech indicated that Zambia had 8,861,918 registered voters.

According to Kateka, this figure has since been used by opposition political parties, analysts, and members of the public for electoral projections and broader assessments of the electoral landscape ahead of the 2026 General Elections.

She said that a separate document published on the ECZ website, titled Registered Voters per Polling Station, reflects a substantially lower figure of 7,073,513 registered voters nationwide.

Kateka stated that the difference between the two figures amounts to 1,788,405 voters, representing a 25.28 percent variance. She said that even allowing for the provisional nature of the earlier figure, the size of the discrepancy is significant and warrants explanation.

She questioned why such a substantial variance had not been publicly addressed by ECZ leadership and why no clarification or correction had been issued following the publication of the detailed polling station data.

Among the issues raised by the NHP are requests for an explanation of how the discrepancy arose, why the ECZ chief executive officer has not publicly accounted for the difference, and whether the commission intended to reconcile or correct the figures without external prompting.

Kateka further questioned how the ECZ would have handled the discrepancy had opposition parties not identified it. She suggested that unexplained voter figure differences of that magnitude could influence electoral outcomes if left unresolved.

In her statement, Kateka called on opposition political parties to shift focus toward what she described as systemic risks to Zambia’s democratic process. She urged opposition parties to pool resources, maintain vigilance, and coordinate efforts aimed at safeguarding the integrity of the vote.

She warned that electoral outcomes could be influenced long before polling day through administrative and statistical processes, stating that elections could be effectively decided prior to the casting of ballots if such issues remain unchecked.

Kateka questionined how opposition parties would be expected to compete fairly if a discrepancy of more than 1.7 million voters were embedded within official electoral data.