Hakainde Hichilema, Zambian leader has continued to bask in the glow of his historic win in the country’s just concluded presidential election. He won the election with over 59% of the votes after five failed attempts in previous elections
The newly – elected president exuded great excitement on his visit to the White House shortly after his election. He became the first Zambian president to visit the White house since 1992, a rare honour that the world leaders get. On his visit, his host, Vice President Kamala Harris, while sharing memories of her visit to Lusaka when she was five years old, said that his defeat of President Edgar Lungu was democracy in action. The two leaders went on to swap victory stories and congratulated each other for their respective elections.
It would be recalled that Hichilema was the candidate of the UDA and ran against President Levy Mwanawasa of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy and Patriotic Front candidate Michael Sata in Zambia’s 2006 presidential election where he took the third place position with about 25% of the votes cast.
Hichilema ran as the UPND candidate in the 2008 election and he came 3rd with 19.7% of the votes. In June 2009, Hichilema’s party, the UPND, formed a pact with Michael Sata’s Patriotic Front to contest the 2011 election together. However, deep mistrust and accusations of tribalism from both sides resulted in the collapse of the pact in March 2011.
Again, he contested as one of the two main candidates in the January 2015 presidential election, which he lost by a narrow margin of 27,757 votes (1.66%) to the immediate past President, Edgar Lungu. Hichilema denounced the election as a sham but urged his supporters to remain calm. He would face Lungu as the main opposition candidate in the August 2016 presidential election and was again, narrowly defeated.
Hichilema ran for the sixth time on 12th August, 2021 and was declared the winner.
