Days after Zambia went to the polls on 13 August, opposition leader Brian Mundubile sits down with me to describe a night he says he barely survived — soldiers at his gate, gunfire inside his home, and members of his camp shot or missing. What follows is a hard conversation about whether this election can be trusted at all, and what he'll do if the result doesn't go his way. And indeed, if it does.
Mundubile's central charge is simple: the vote can't be called credible until someone explains, independently, what happened to the Gen 20 forms and the rest of the election material — and who had their hands on it. He describes what he says is a country on edge, an electoral commission he no longer trusts, a campaign he says was throttled, and a claim of victory he insists he never made.
He describes the mood in Zambia as close to breaking point — soldiers on the streets, soldiers at the polling stations, soldiers at the tallying centres. Not a reassuring presence, in his telling, but an intimidating one.
Then the attack. He says 70 to 80 army officers came to his home and opened fire inside the house. A former transport minister was hit, he says; so was his bodyguard. Others simply vanished — among them Bishop Trevor Mwamba. The government denied any of it had happened, he says, right up until observers and cameras turned up and documented the scene.
His problem with the count comes down to custody. He says the Electoral Commission suspended announcing results and started calling in Gen 20 forms in a way that broke from normal procedure — and that military and intelligence officers should never have been anywhere near election material in the first place.
So he won't accept a presidential result just because it's been read out. If the core questions aren't answered, he says, an announcement means nothing. He's firm that he never declared himself the winner — he was pointing to his own side's parallel count, not crowning himself — but he's equally clear he believes that count puts him ahead.
He's scathing about the conditions his campaign ran under: police blocking meetings, days lost off the trail, violence flaring in several provinces, a final stronghold he never got to visit. There are also claims here of foreign mercenaries and attackers coming across the border, and an account of his own detention and release, with the police and intelligence services in the frame.
On his own past, he doesn't dodge it. He accepts the Patriotic Front fell short in government, but insists his formation has changed .And if he wins? He says he'd protect the office of the outgoing president, follow due process on any corruption allegations rather than settle scores, and build a government that reaches across regions and reconciles rather than punishes.
Chapters
00:00 — Zambia after the vote: a country holding its breath
00:49 — Soldiers everywhere, and the first doubts about the count
01:32 — The night they came: gunfire at the house
04:32 — Why he says this election can't be trusted
05:28 — The Gen 20 forms, and what happened to them
06:40 — Chain of custody: why who holds the paper matters
08:02 — What he'll accept — and what he won't
08:56 — His case against the Electoral Commission's independence
09:46 — A campaign run on the back foot
10:37 — Violence in the provinces, and the stronghold he never reached
11:30 — Soldiers guarding ballots: how did we get here?
12:58 — \"I never declared myself winner\" — setting the record straight
13:41 — Why he believes his own count leads
14:18 — Mercenaries and attackers across the border
15:24 — Detained and released: the role of police and intelligence
17:09 — Owning the PF's failures, and drawing a line under violence
19:21 — What he'd do with a defeated president
20:10 — Rule of law, not payback
21:38 — Reconciliation and a government for every region
Note: The claims and allegations in this interview are Brian Mundubile's own account. Africa Here & Now puts them on the record and reports them as his testimony.
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