Africa Economics & Strategy Weekly: Zambia: Upcoming elections and possible post-election kwacha dynamics

Research evidence excerpt

Africa Economics & Strategy Weekly: Zambia: Upcoming elections and possible post-election kwacha dynamics

Africa Economics & Strategy Weekly

27 July 2026 Citi Research

Tonse-Pamodzi Alliance. More importantly, he does seem to have broadly cut his

links with the political infighting currently playing out within the PF.

What is less clear is whether he has started to draw in voters away from the

twelve other candidates3 contesting the presidential election; or whether this

large number of opposition candidates and a large portion of undecided votes

splits the opposition vote. This may at least in part depend on whom voters

potentially blame for the ups and downs in the economy in the last 5-6 years. In

particular, the new president and his government have had to deal with the fall-

out of both the November 2021 debt default and a significant drought in 2024.

In the light of this, it is perhaps not surprising that when questioned about

whether economic conditions were better or worse in Zambia in the ZERN

polling, “respondents were split, with 41% reporting that things had gotten

worse, while 38% reported that their personal conditions had improved.

Having said that, we suspect that as in many African countries, it is not really

broad economic data, such as GDP data for example, that really influences

economic perceptions (although in Zambia for the current elections there is an

argument that the ending of the 2024 drought and the surge in agricultural

production may prove important). Instead, it is usually a combination of inflation

data, and often crucially, what is happening with the exchange rate which most

influence economic views. And even in these cases, it is not always clear which

data reference point voters think about.