23/08/2026
Mundubile’s Proposed Petition Faces an Uphill Battle as Tonse Fractures and Independent Evidence Supports Hichilema’s Victory
By Mainza Vernon | Legal & Electoral Analysis
At the time of writing, no presidential election petition by Brian Mundubile was publicly known to have been filed before the Constitutional Court.
A presidential election petition is not won simply by demonstrating that irregularities occurred. The more difficult question is whether those irregularities are sufficiently serious and consequential to invalidate the election.
With the political alliance behind Mundubile's candidacy now fracturing, and CCMG's independent PVT concluding that the discrepancies it identified did not alter the presidential outcome, what would a proposed petition actually have to establish?
I examine the emerging legal and evidential issues below.
Mundubile’s Planned Petition Faces an Uphill Battle as Tonse Fractures and Independent Evidence Supports Hichilema’s Victory
By Mainza Vernon | Legal & Electoral Analysis
The proposed presidential election petition by former opposition presidential candidate Brian Mundubile may face an increasingly difficult evidential challenge, not necessarily because there were no irregularities during the election, but because the emerging evidence appears to challenge the central proposition that those irregularities changed the outcome of the presidential election. At the time of writing, no presidential election petition by Mundubile was publicly known to have been filed before the Constitutional Court.
Mundubile has alleged that the election was rigged and has indicated his intention to challenge the result in the Constitutional Court. However, developments since the election have created an increasingly complicated legal and political environment for such a petition. Perhaps most significantly, the political alliance through which he contested the presidential election is now fracturing. He contested under the Tonse Alliance, with the New Revolution Party (NRPUP) being used as the sponsoring party on the presidential ballot. His running mate, Makebi Zulu, was also presented as part of the Tonse presidential ticket.
But NRPUP has now distanced itself from the proposed petition and publicly accepted President Hakainde Hichilema's victory. The Republican Party (RP) has taken a similar position, while the Tonse Alliance leadership has also indicated that it does not support the proposed petition. This raises an important question: what happens to a presidential petition when the political parties that formed the alliance behind the candidate no longer support the challenge?
The answer under the Constitution is not as simple as saying that the petition automatically collapses. Article 103 of the Constitution gives “a person” the right to petition the Constitutional Court within seven days of the declaration of a President-elect if that person contends that the President-elect was not validly elected or that a provision of the Constitution or another law relating to the election of the President was not complied with.
Consequently, Mundubile's individual right to petition does not necessarily disappear simply because NRPUP or RP has withdrawn its political support. The more significant question may therefore not be standing, but evidence. A presidential election petition is ultimately a legal proceeding. Political dissatisfaction with an election is not sufficient. The petitioner must present evidence capable of establishing the constitutional or legal grounds for overturning the election. And this is where the case appears to be facing an increasingly difficult environment.
Independent evidence points to the same winner
The most significant development is the emerging convergence between the official result and independent election assessments. The Christian Churches Monitoring Group (CCMG), through its Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT), independently assessed the presidential results using data from 1,491 of its 1,500 sampled polling stations across the country. Its assessment concluded that Hichilema remained the winner and that the discrepancies identified in 30 constituencies did not alter the overall presidential outcome. This is important because CCMG did not claim that the election was completely free of problems.
On the contrary, it identified irregularities and discrepancies that warrant attention. The concerns identified across the affected constituencies included violence and other electoral incidents, as well as unusually high turnout and discrepancies between observed and officially reported figures. But the crucial conclusion was that these problems did not change who won the presidential election. That distinction could become central to any Constitutional Court proceedings. There is a fundamental difference between establishing that irregularities occurred and establishing that those irregularities were sufficiently serious, widespread or consequential to invalidate the presidential election. The former may be relatively straightforward. The latter requires considerably more.
The 30 constituencies
The 30 constituencies identified by CCMG are therefore likely to become an important part of the debate. But their existence should not automatically be interpreted as evidence that the presidential result was fraudulent. A constituency may experience violence, unusually high turnout, procedural violations or other irregularities without those problems necessarily changing the national presidential result. For example, if violence occurred in a constituency, several questions immediately arise.
Did the violence prevent people from voting?
Were ballots affected?
Were results altered?
Can the genuine votes still be established?
Did the incident affect the presidential result nationally?
And, most importantly, were the violations sufficiently serious, under the Constitution and applicable electoral law, to warrant nullifying the presidential election?
Those are questions that evidence, rather than political statements, must answer.
The margin matters
The scale of Hichilema's reported victory is another significant factor. The official result placed Hichilema at approximately 60 percent of the vote, with Mundubile at approximately 38 percent — a difference of more than 20 percentage points. CCMG's independent PVT likewise concluded that Hichilema remained the winner after accounting for the discrepancies it identified. This was therefore not a marginal contest in which relatively small changes could readily reverse the outcome.
Consequently, even if some votes in the affected constituencies were found to have been improperly recorded or counted, Mundubile would still need to demonstrate that the identified problems were sufficiently extensive and legally significant to undermine the validity of the national result.
This does not mean that a large margin makes an election legally immune from challenge. It does not. A serious constitutional violation cannot simply be ignored because the winner has a large margin. But it does mean that a petitioner seeking nullification faces a much more difficult evidential task if independent assessments indicate that correcting the identified problems would not change the winner.
NRPUP and RP could become significant witnesses
The political developments within Tonse could make the evidentiary battle even more interesting. NRPUP was not merely an ordinary political ally. It was the party used for the presidential nomination. To the extent that NRPUP and RP officials participated in the election campaign, deployed polling agents, received reports from polling stations or monitored the counting process, their evidence could potentially be relevant to any petition.
If representatives of those parties were to testify that their own election monitoring did not substantiate particular allegations advanced by Mundubile, such evidence could potentially weaken those claims. However, their testimony would not automatically prove that the election was free and fair. Mundubile's lawyers would have the right to challenge their evidence and could ask whether party officials personally monitored every polling station, whether they received reports from all their agents and whether there were areas where irregularities may have escaped their attention.
Ultimately, the Court would have to evaluate the evidence rather than simply count the number of political parties supporting either side.
The petition may therefore change character
The most important question may no longer be: Did Hichilema win the election? CCMG's independent assessment provides independent evidence supporting that conclusion. The more difficult question for Mundubile becomes: Was the election conducted in such a manner that, despite Hichilema obtaining the highest number of votes, the election must nevertheless be nullified? That is a different legal argument.
It would require the petitioner to identify specific constitutional or statutory violations and demonstrate why those violations are sufficiently serious to justify overturning the presidential result. Simply establishing that there were irregularities may not be enough.
A petition can survive politically but fail evidentially
This is perhaps the most important distinction in the current debate. Mundubile can maintain his political position that the election was rigged. He can also have a constitutional right to petition. But neither proposition guarantees that the petition will succeed. The Constitutional Court would ultimately have to consider the evidence presented by all sides. On one side could be Mundubile's evidence of alleged irregularities.
On the other could be the official ECZ results, independent parallel vote tabulation, election-monitoring reports, polling-station records and potentially testimony from political parties that participated in the election. If the independent evidence consistently demonstrates that Hichilema won and that the identified irregularities did not change the outcome, Mundubile's task becomes considerably harder. He would have to show something beyond the existence of electoral problems. He would have to demonstrate why those problems are sufficiently serious to require the Court to grant the exceptional constitutional remedy of nullifying the presidential election.
The emerging paradox
There is therefore an interesting paradox developing around the proposed petition. The independent organizations that have identified irregularities may provide Mundubile with evidence that problems existed. But the same findings may also provide evidence supporting the conclusion that those problems did not change the result.
Meanwhile, the political parties that supported Mundubile's candidacy are increasingly distancing themselves from the proposed challenge. NRPUP accepts the result. RP accepts the result. The Tonse Alliance is divided over the petition.
And CCMG's independent assessment indicates that Hichilema remains the winner even after accounting for the discrepancies it identified. This does not legally prevent Mundubile from petitioning. But it could make the petition considerably more difficult to prove.
The Constitutional Court will not be asked simply whether the 2026 election was perfect. No election is necessarily perfect. The Court will have to determine whether the alleged violations meet the constitutional threshold necessary to invalidate the election of the president-elect. That is a much narrower and more demanding question.
For Mundubile, therefore, the challenge may no longer be simply about proving that something went wrong. It may be about demonstrating that what went wrong was so serious, so widespread and so legally consequential that the declared presidential result cannot stand. The fact that independent verification by CCMG found that the identified discrepancies did not alter the overall presidential outcome could make that task considerably more difficult. The eventual determination, however, remains a matter for the Constitutional Court.
Disclaimer: This article represents the author's independent legal and electoral analysis and is not intended to prejudge any petition that may be filed before the Constitutional Court. The determination of any presidential election petition rests with the Court.
