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Zambian Opposition Leader Hichilema Wins Presidential Election

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Zambian opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema secured a shock landslide victory in the nation’s presidential election, Naija News reports.

Chairman of Electoral Commission of Zambia, Esau Chulu announced Hichilema’s victory over incumbent President Edgar Lungu at a briefing early on Monday in the capital, Lusaka.

Chulu said that Hichilema obtained 2.81 million votes against 1.81 million for Lungu — the biggest margin of victory in a quarter-century.

The 59-year-old faces the difficult task of reviving an economy wrecked by years of overspending that culminated in the nation becoming Africa’s first pandemic-era sovereign defaulter in November.

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The president-elect will also need to reach a deal with the International Monetary Fund for a bailout, and repair relations with copper miners operating in Zambia, Africa’s second-biggest producer of the metal.

Hichilema has said he plans to seal a bailout from the IMF as soon as is technically possible and initiate debt-restructuring talks.

The businessman and cattle rancher says he can achieve an economic growth rate of more than 10% within five years if he’s elected, mainly by growing the mining, agriculture, construction and manufacturing industries.

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Lungu, who won power in 2015, said the Aug. 12 election was tainted because of violence in three provinces where Hichilema performed the best.

But a European Union observer mission on Saturday pointed to a lopsided playing field that favored Lungu during the campaign period when it said there was the misuse of state resources and one-sided media reporting.

Hichilema’s United Party for National Development dismissed Lungu’s claims.

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Zambia stand out in the region, having changed governments democratically twice since the late Kenneth Kaunda’s rule ended in 1991. The Patriotic Front won power in 2011 under Michael Sata’