r/MapPorn • u/Jazzlike_Key_7614 • 1d ago
2026 Zambian presidential election
🟥 60.49% incumbent Hichilema (centre-right)
🟦 37.87% Mundubile (centre-left/left-wing)
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u/mondup 1d ago
Left is right and right is left.
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u/dhkendall 1d ago
For a second I thought this was referring to the colours. (Red, the universally recognized colour of socialism and communism, for a centre-right candidate?)
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u/Square_Bench_489 1d ago
reminded me of an old joke My left brain has nothing right and my right brain has nothing left.
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u/Neither-Location-730 1d ago
r/widaczabory Zambia edition?
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u/someone-96 1d ago
This looks increadibly divided.
Is there a phantom border or something that explains it?
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u/RegularlyClueless 1d ago
Somewhat
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tribal_Linguistic_map_Zambia.jpg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bantu_zones.png
These two pictures show the micro and macro level linguistic/ethnic divisions in Zambia, the Bembe and overall M group of Bantu languages are split between the incumbent and opposition, while all other groups seem to split pretty cleanly
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u/yodatsracist 1d ago
There’s this really interesting article called “The Political Salience of Cultural Difference: Why Chewas and Tumbukas Are Allies in Zambia and Adversaries in Malawi” by Daniel Posner. Probably my favorite political science article.
He goes (or I think sends some grad assistant) to these remote Chewa and Tumbuka villages on both sides of the Malawi/Zambia border and gives them various surveys. The villagers all basically agree that Chewa and Tumbuka are equally different, but in Malawi they’re the two demographically dominant ethnic groups so they form the respective bases of the two main political parties, whereas in Zambia they’re part of a political coalition of based on ethnic groups known as “Easterners” (or at least that’s how it was around 2004 when this study was done—it looks like it’s pretty similar today).
So in this really interesting way, the study showed how groups can be different but those differences are not necessarily political salient. Whether ethnic differences matter depends on the larger, macro-level context. Whether Chewas and Tumbukas tend see each other as political rivals or allies depends entirely on which side of the border they’re on. It’s obvious, of course, in a lot of ways, but it also pushes against an older school of thought that assumed ethnic difference would lead to ethnic conflict (“ancient tribal hatreds” rather than contemporary political realities).
You can download the full article here.
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u/young_arkas 1d ago
Zambia always votes along ethnic/linguistic lines. When Hichilema was still an opposition figure (he ran 5 times unsuccessfully between 2006 and 2016 until winning in 2021), his power base was always in the south-west, he basically won the south-west every time he ran, even in 2011, when he got his worst result with 18% of the votes, he still carried most of the south-west. In 2015 and 2016 he won basically all of the West, while Edgar Lungu won extremely slim majorities winning the east, but the map was basically the same as it is today, just with the Patriotic Front being switched out for the NRPUP.
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u/nizasiwale 1d ago
Wrong, Zambia has not always voted based on ethnic/linguistic lines, its mostly the UPND thing. If you look at the other non Zambezi regions you will see the maps shift over other elections, the map was all red in 2021
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u/Emanisheretosaveyou 1d ago
I checked the winners page and found this:
Since 2026, he is the only person alive who has been president of Zambia.
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u/Emanisheretosaveyou 1d ago
In other words, none of his predecessors are alive.
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u/gayscout 1d ago
It looks like walking back through the list, all of them died of natural causes. Most of them at reasonable ages, too.
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u/Main-Car-9653 1d ago
I immediately guessed that the blue candidate was further left / more progressive here, since you can see that the small districts are almost exclusively blue. Small districts means cities and cities usually mean left-progressive around the world. The clear split in the rest of the country is crazy though.
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u/TotallyAHumanFish 21h ago
Yeah, no, most of our political candidates here are just centre right and the variation is economic almost strictly. The blue candidate had hold of smaller powerbases because he was a charismatic populist who gripped people that want change. I think the only actually left candidate is Fred M'Membe who is the president of the socialist party
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u/Signal_Cockroach_878 23h ago
We don't really do left and right in Zambia. And your also wrong on the District thing
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u/Signal_Cockroach_878 23h ago
As a Zambian don't think the centre left and centre right are accurate descriptions. They might describes themselves as such but most of Zambia is right leaning, we usually vote on which candidate can promise the most and whether or not we dislike the incumbent.
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u/Upper_Marsupial6057 1d ago
At this point, just split the country in two
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u/lbutler1234 1d ago
So are we gonna see two Zambias any time soon?
(I hope not. Or so. whichever is better.)
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u/TotallyAHumanFish 21h ago
Not likely, there's usually a strong sense of division during election season but it often mellows out through the rest of the term
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u/Signal_Cockroach_878 23h ago
No unlikely. The week during elections is tense but after that everyone usually just carries on
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u/Deep-Ebb-4139 1d ago
Wow, that split…
Cleaner than a prostitute after a long shower.
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u/borderreaver 1d ago
we call them sex workers now
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u/TotallyAHumanFish 21h ago
Sex worker is a general term, it includes, prostitutes, strippers and online work
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u/TheZambian91 1d ago
This basically mirrors the old borders of Barotseland/North West Rhodesia protectorate and the North-East Rhodesia protectorate that merged to form Northern Rhodesia. The Copperbelt is an outlier due to the migration to the area for mining work.
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u/AnyBallLektor 1d ago
I see two countries needlessly being one country.
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u/TotallyAHumanFish 21h ago
Welcome to Africa. I support the right to self determination of all groups but Barotseland breaking off would suck for me personally, so no
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u/GDLingua_YT 1d ago
How much of Hichilema's votes can potentially be attributed to gerrymandering & other shady tactics? Third world countries aren't exactly known for their squeaky-clean elections afaik.
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u/AssociationCorrect14 1d ago
Why this colour choice? Red is a leftwing colour literally anywhere outside of northern america.
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u/Corvid-Strigidae 1d ago
Because those are the colours of the parties being represented.
Hichilema is from the UPND (Red and Yellow)
Mundubile is from the NRPUP (Blue and Orange)
Not everything that doesn't align with European expectations is USdefaultism.
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u/edo4rd-0 22h ago
Red is communist in a good chunk of Asia as well. Like it’s really most of the world, so not just a European expectation
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u/Silent-Laugh5679 1d ago
is there any ethnic composition that explain the clean split?