Zambia Holds Elections With Economic Crisis and Drought Shaping the Vote

Zambia goes to the polls with President Hakainde Hichilema seeking a second term against a backdrop of an acute economic and climate crisis. A multi-year drought has cut Zambia's hydropower output — which normally supplies around 80 percent of the national grid — by roughly half, producing rolling power cuts of up to eighteen hours daily that have devastated small businesses, maize processing, and healthcare delivery. Simultaneously, Zambia's sovereign debt default and restructuring process, one of the first major tests of the G20's Common Framework, has constrained government spending on social programmes and agricultural support at precisely the moment they are most needed.

The election is significant beyond its political outcome: it is one of the clearest examples of climate change directly shaping democratic politics in sub-Saharan Africa. The drought that collapsed the Kariba reservoir levels — shared with Zimbabwe — is consistent with the region's documented trend of more severe and frequent dry spells. Hichilema's government has been caught between meeting IMF conditionality for debt restructuring and spending enough on drought response to maintain political viability — a fiscal tightrope that structural adjustment orthodoxy was not designed for in a climate-stressed economy.

Watch whether the election result accelerates or stalls Zambia's debt restructuring finalisation, which in turn determines whether the country can access climate finance under the current debt architecture — a question with implications for every other highly indebted climate-vulnerable country watching the Common Framework's performance.