2026 PRESIDENTIAL RESULTS PETITION- A MUST READ TILL THE END
By: Dr. Larry Mweetwa
IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL COURT OF ZAMBIA
HOLDEN AT LUSAKA
(Constitutional Jurisdiction)
CAUSE NO.: CC/EP/2026/014
BETWEEN:
BRIAN MUNDUBILE (1st Petitioner)
MAKEBI ZULU (2nd Petitioner)
AND
THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION OF ZAMBIA (1st Respondent)
HAKAINDE HICHILEMA (2nd Respondent)
CORAM: Hon. Dr. Justice Larry Mweetwa, SC, JCC
APPEARANCES:
Mr. Makebi Zulu, SC, and Mr. Brian Mundubile in person / for the Petitioners.
State Counsel and Counsel for the Respondents in attendance.
COURTROOM SCRIPT
(The courtroom is packed to capacity. The air is tense with legal expectancy. Hon. Dr. Justice Larry Mweetwa sits composed on the bench, thumbing through an expansive bundle of electoral returns and constitutional statutes.
The Petitioners, Makebi Zulu and Brian Mundubile, stand at the Bar table looking visibly anxious.)
CLERK OF COURT: Silence in Court! The Constitutional Court is in session. All rise.
(Everyone rises. The Judge takes his seat.)
HON. DR. JUSTICE LARRY MWEETWA: Be seated.
We are here pursuant to Article 101 of the Constitution of Zambia to entertain the presidential election petition filed by the petitioners challenging the absolute victory of President Hakainde Hichilema. Let us proceed with strict adherence to court orders, rules of evidence, and due process.
Mr. Zulu, you have carriage of the opening submissions.
What is the gravamen of your locus standi and substantive petition?
MAKEBI ZULU (for the Petitioners): (Rising) May it please My Lordship. We appear to challenge the purported declaration of the 2nd Respondent as President-Elect. We submit that the electoral process was vitiated by substantial non-compliance with the electoral laws under the Electoral Process Act, manifest numerical discrepancies, and structural anomalies that render the entire tabulation void ab initio. We invoke the equitable jurisdiction of this court to look beyond mere mechanical collation and address the manifest injustices.
HON. DR. JUSTICE LARRY MWEETWA: (Interrupting, raising a hand) Hold your horses, Counsel.
Before you delve into the labyrinth of your pleadings, let us temper our enthusiasm with a dose of realism. As the Bemba wise proverb goes, “Ukuboko ukwakuuka takulabako,” or more aptly put for our jurisprudential journey: he who cleanses his hands in mud should not expect them to gleam in the sunlight.
Let me take you back down memory lane, Counsel. Let us test your legal conscience. Do you recall the fateful events of 2015 and 2016? When President Hakainde Hichilema petitioned the election back then after losing by a razor-thin margin of barely 10,000 votes, what did you and your senior party colleagues in the Patriotic Front do?
You hid behind procedural technicalities, weaponized the strict 14-day hearing rule under Article 103(2), and aggressively blocked the petitioners from ever being heard on the merits!
Tell me, Makebi, if this court were to blindly rely on that very same historical precedent you engineered and decided to apply the exact same principle refusing to hear your petition on technicalities and failing to declare a winner within a compressed timeline—what would be your take? Would you praise the law or curse the ghost of your own making?
MAKEBI ZULU: My Lord, er… with respect, My Lord, every cause must be judged on its own distinct factual matrix. The principles of natural justice and audi alteram partem dictate that substantive justice must override procedural fetters.
HON. DR. JUSTICE LARRY MWEETWA: (Beaming sternly) Ah, convenience is a comfortable blanket, Counsel, but history is an unforgiving mirror. You cannot plant thorns and harvest silk.
Let us move to the numbers, because mathematics does not lie, and statistics do not wear political badges. In 2021, the UPND won the election by an overwhelming margin of over one million votes while in opposition. This year again, President Hakainde Hichilema has secured an emphatic mandate with over one million votes clear of the pack. Statistically speaking, do you seriously doubt the mathematical integrity and systemic computation of the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ)? Where is your empirical variance report? Or are you merely engaging in speculative conjecture clothed as a legal pleading?
BRIAN MUNDUBILE (Co-Petitioner): (Interjecting) My Lord, if I may interject on behalf of the co-petitioner. We contend that the statistical convergence points to systemic anomalies—
HON. DR. JUSTICE LARRY MWEETWA: (Turning sharply to Mundubile) Mr. Mundubile, let us pause right there and zoom in from macro-statistics to micro-tactics. Let us talk about the dramatic events of the 13th of August, deep in the twilight hours at a named safe house.
State security forces stumbled upon a heavily guarded installation where you, Counsel, and your co-petitioners were found locked in direct association with a heavily armed, trained militia group.
Why were these individuals firing live rounds at state security officers? And more importantly, as law-abiding aspirants who supposedly campaigned peacefully throughout the republic on a platform of civility, how on earth did you manage to harbor high-grade military weaponry and a militia battalion on the very eve of the election? Was that part of your constitutional manifesto, Mr. Mundubile? Answer the court!
BRIAN Mundubile: My Lord… My Lord, those allegations are sensationalized by state media; we were merely holding a private strategy session.
HON. DR. JUSTICE LARRY MWEETWA: (Chuckling dryly) A strategy session with assault rifles and tactical gear? Counsel, as the old adage warns: “He who sups with the devil needs a very long spoon, but you seem to have brought an entire artillery brigade to the dinner table.”
Let us compound the inquiry further. Financial tracking in an electronic economy leaves footprints, yet your campaign finance records present a baffling financial miracle. How did your campaign management team manage to withdraw over K10 million in donated campaign funds within a span of just two days when commercial banking institutions were entirely closed for the weekend, and with absolutely no trace, record, or API log of any Airtel Money or mobile money bulk withdrawals? Did the money materialize through divine intervention, or is your financial disclosure report a work of pure fiction?
MAKEBI ZULU: My Lord, the financial transactions were handled by third-party agents whose records are subject to ongoing forensic auditing.
HON. DR. JUSTICE LARRY MWEETWA: (Leaning forward) Forensic auditing requires a foundation of truth, Counsel, which brings me to the core electoral fraud. Why did your parallel structures generate and distribute fake Gen-20 forms laden with fabricated polling station results across multiple provinces, attempting to prematurely self-declare yourselves as winners in flagrant violation of the Electoral Process Act?
You attempted to manufacture an alternate reality on paper while the official ECZ transmission streams were operating lawfully.
Counsel, you came to this temple of justice seeking an equitable remedy, yet you come with hands stained by procedural manipulation, unverified declarations, and unexplained security breaches.
THE JUDGMENT
HON. DR. JUSTICE LARRY MWEETWA:
This court has listened with patient judicial indulgence to the extensive submissions, oral arguments, and pleadings tendered by the petitioners, alongside the robust counter-submissions from the respondents.
As Lord Denning aptly stated, “Though the heavens fall, justice must be done.” But justice is anchored on concrete evidence, verifiable data, and substantive proof—not on smoke, mirrors, or manufactured panic.
1. On the Standard of Proof: An election petition challenging the return of a presidential candidate bears a heavy evidentiary burden. The petitioners must establish not merely irregularities, but qualitative and quantitative non-compliance that structurally affected the final outcome. This, the petitioners have abjectly failed to do.
2. On the Statistical Evidence: The mathematical margin of over one million votes recorded by the 2nd Respondent reflects a nationwide democratic expression that has withstood both statistical cross-checking and institutional audits by the Electoral Commission of Zambia.
3. On the Merits and Conduct: The court takes judicial notice of the total absence of credible, admissible primary evidence substantiating vote manipulation, coupled with the glaring collateral controversies surrounding unregulated parallel tallying and unexplained logistical anomalies presented by the petitioners.
Accordingly, it is the unanimous and unyielding decision of this Constitutional Court that:
The petitioners have failed to establish or bring before this court substantial, cogent, and credible evidence to invalidate the presidential election results.
The petition is hereby dismissed in its entirety for want of merit and evidentiary substantiation.
Pursuant to Article 101 of the Constitution of Zambia, this court hereby declares His Excellency Mr. Hakainde Hichilema as the duly elected and validated winner of the presidential election.
Please bring the evidence: “The law may give every man a microphone, but evidence determines whose argument survives.”
A fisherman who says there are fish in the river must eventually produce either the fish or the net.
If you allege criminality, prove the constituent elements before the appropriate tribunal and to the appropriate standard.
“A footprint may tell you somebody passed; it does not tell you who stole the goat.”
When you make laws, remember one day the same law will be used against you “Do not laugh when your neighbour’s canoe develops a hole; tomorrow you may need to cross the same river.”
“You cannot empty Lake Kariba with a teaspoon and call it drainage.”
Evidence decides it.
As our elders teach us:
“When the river has spoken, the canoe cannot demand that the water flow backwards.”
And to you Ba UPND let me leave you with the the following counsel:
“Power is borrowed from the people; it is never inherited from the ballot box.”
Let the unsuccessful remember:
“Losing an election does not make one an enemy of the Republic.”
And let Zambia remember:
Governments come and governments go, political parties rise and fall, but the Republic must endure.
“The winner must never mock the one who has fallen, because tomorrow’s road remains unknown.”
Each party shall bear its own costs.
COURT ADJOURNED SINE DIE.
(Gavel strikes heavily)
Follow-up Question: Counsel, would you like the court to elaborate further on the statutory framework governing parallel voter tabulation rules under the current electoral amendments?
THE PEOPLE’S VERDICT
A Fictional Constitutional Courtroom Drama
IMPORTANT FICTION NOTICE: This is an imaginary work of political and legal satire. The dialogue, evidence, incidents, allegations, locations and judicial proceedings depicted below are fictionalised for dramatic purposes. References to alleged militia activity, weapons, financial transactions, fabricated election documents or electoral misconduct are hypothetical allegations within the fictional story and are not assertions of fact about any real person. No criminal wrongdoing by any named individual should be inferred from this fictional script.