Just one day after Zambians went to the polls, what should have been a story about a decisive second term has become a story about gunfire, a dead former minister and an opposition leader on the run.

Here is what has happened in Zambia, according to cbinews.tv:

So the dust had barely settled on last Thursday presidential vote when a joint security task force raided a house in Lusaka linked to opposition leader Brian Mundubile.

According to police, it was not a quiet knock on the door. They say they were met with gunfire and resistance from unknown individuals and returned fire. In that exchange, a man was fatally wounded. For days, no one knew who he was.

Late on Wednesday, police confirmed the dead man was Mutotwe Kafwaya, aged 49.

If that name rings a bell, it should. Kafwaya has been around Zambian politics for a while.

He first became an MP back in 2016, served as Minister for Works under the late former President Edgar Lungu in 2018, then was moved to Transport in 2019.

He stayed on as an opposition MP after Lungu lost to Hakainde Hichilema in that landmark 2021 election, the election that ended ten years of Patriotic Front rule and was hailed at the time as a huge moment for Zambian democracy.

On Tuesday, Mundubile himself said he had no information on Kafwaya whereabouts since he was shot during the raid, which Mundubile says took place at his own house.

The official line is stark. Eleven people were arrested in the operation, with authorities accusing Mundubile party, the NRPUP, of involvement in insurgency and militia activity and of storing high grade weapons. A firearm was reportedly recovered at the scene.

Mundubile, who has now gone into hiding, has called the allegations total fabrications.

All of this is unfolding against a tense post election backdrop.

Per the official results, incumbent President Hakainde Hichilema, the businessman turned politician known as HH, won a second five year term with 60 percent of the vote. Mundubile polled 38 percent and says he will challenge the result in court, alleging the tallying process was tampered with.

And this is where the observer reports get interesting.

On election day itself, regional and international monitors said things were largely peaceful. But the run up, less so. The EU Election Observation Mission warned over the weekend that restrictions on the opposition during campaigning may have created an uneven contest, citing concerns about late electoral reforms and media freedom.

Then came the count. The Electoral Commission paused counting for six hours, citing violence against staff and ballot box theft. When it resumed, the EU mission says the tabulation process deteriorated significantly.

Their report on Wednesday noted that in many centres, staff did not record results on tally sheets as soon as they were announced, there was weak verification between digital entries and paper records, and returning officers kept pausing proceedings while awaiting instructions from headquarters.

They also described a heavy military presence as intimidating.

Zambia has been seen as one of Africa more stable democracies since it introduced multiparty politics in 1991, with five peaceful transfers of power since then. But elections have often been fiercely contested, the 2016 and 2021 polls between Hichilema and Lungu were both marked by claims of state overreach, internet shutdowns and court challenges.

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