People’s Pact petitions ECZ and Attorney General to halt delimitation process
People's Pact Vice President for Strategy Mr. Peter Chazya Sinkamba.
By Hellen Bwalya and Derrick Sinjela
The opposition People’s Pact has petitioned the Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) Chairperson State Counsel (SC) Mwangala Zaloumis and Attorney General (AG) Mulilo Kabesha in the Constitutional Court seeking an order to halt the implementation of the delimitation process scheduled for April 2026 on the basis that the process is illegal.
The People’s Pact led by Socialist Party Zambia President and it’s Presidential candidate on Thursday 13th August 2026, Dr. Fred M’membe is asking the Constitutional Court for a stay of the 2025/2026 delimitation exercise and an injunction preventing certification of the final voters register, which is due on 30th April 2026, arguing that the ECZ’s sequence of operations contravenes constitutional provisions governing boundary changes.
Pact Vice President for Strategy Peter Sinkamba submits that the voter registration data were captured before the legal finalization of new boundaries and before the dissolution of parliament and councils, raising alleged breaches of article 58(6) and article 57(6) of the constitution.
Sinkamba alleges that certifying the register on 30 April will create an irreversible legal lock under the Electoral Process Act and risk mass disenfranchisement, since voter cards issued under the existing 156 constituencies could be mapped to 211 constituencies after.
Sinkamba argues the impending provisional register inspection window from 9 to 23 February 2026, saying voters currently lack the constitutional certainty required to verify their registration details against legally finalized boundaries.
The petition also contends that the ECZ has not demonstrated compliance with the population quota requirement set out in article 58 (5) and notes uncertainty over which delimitation report the commission intends to rely on, whether a 2019 report or a post-2022 census report will be used and insists that maintaining the status quo of 156 constituencies pending judicial determination is the balance of convenience that will protect the credibility of the Thursday August 13th, 2026 Tripartite Election.
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