.. IN PAID ADVERTISING AND MEDIA COVERAGE Brian Mundubile's campaign content generated almost three times as many Facebook views as President Hakainde Hichilema's during Zambia's August 2026 election campaign, despite the incumbent and his supporters spending more than US$34,000 on Meta advertising compared with just US$301 identified for the opposition candidate and his party. These .. IN PAID ADVERTISING AND MEDIA COVERAGE Brian Mundubile's campaign content generated almost three times as many Facebook views as President Hakainde Hichilema's during Zambia's August 2026 election campaign, despite the incumbent and his supporters spending more than US$34,000 on Meta advertising compared with just US$301 identified for the opposition candidate and his party. These The EU election report reveals Mundubile generated 31.76 million Facebook views against Hichilema's 11.91 million, while UPND dominated paid adverts and state media coverage.

.. IN PAID ADVERTISING AND MEDIA COVERAGE

Brian Mundubile’s campaign content generated almost three times as many Facebook views as President Hakainde Hichilema’s during Zambia’s August 2026 election campaign, despite the incumbent and his supporters spending more than US$34,000 on Meta advertising compared with just US$301 identified for the opposition candidate and his party.

These are among the striking findings in the European Union Election Observation Mission’s final report on Zambia’s August 13 general elections, which provides a detailed assessment of how the two leading presidential candidates performed online, how much was spent on paid political advertising and how traditional and online media covered the contest.

According to the report, Mundubile’s Facebook content accumulated 31.76 million views, compared with 11.91 million views for Hichilema.

The findings offer an interesting picture of a campaign in which the President commanded a much larger online following and had significantly greater advertising resources, but the opposition candidate’s content generated considerably more views and engagement.

For Zambian Eye, the findings also raise wider questions about the influence of organic social media activity, paid political advertising and the role of media institutions in shaping the electoral information environment.

Mundubile generated nearly three times the views

The EU mission’s monitoring of the Facebook activity of the four presidential candidates found that Hichilema had the largest audience, with approximately 2.4 million followers at the end of the campaign.

Mundubile had less than a third of that following, but his audience grew by 56 per cent during the monitored period.

The report says he generated a comparable volume of interactions, more shares and nearly three times as many views as the incumbent.

His engagement rate per post was four times higher than Hichilema’s.

The mission attributed Mundubile’s performance partly to the mobilisation character of his campaign and the growth of his follower base.

It also suggested that algorithmic amplification may have played a role, explaining that his posts attracted more reactions, both supportive and hostile, which could have led the platform to distribute the content more widely.

The report further noted that cyber laws may have discouraged some users from commenting on the President’s page, potentially reducing reactions and algorithmic amplification.

The mission cautioned that the online performance of the candidates reflected different campaign strategies and audience behaviour.

Hichilema’s campaign spent US$34,886 on Meta adverts

The difference becomes more pronounced when the report examines paid political advertising.

Between May 21 and August 12, the EU mission identified US$35,187 in political advertising expenditure on Meta’s Ad Library relating to the two main presidential candidates and their parties.

Of this amount, US$34,886, representing approximately 99 per cent, went towards promoting Hichilema and the UPND.

Only US$301 was identified for Mundubile and the National Reconciliation Party for Unity and Prosperity (NRPUP).

The report says two pages supporting the President accounted for 94 per cent of the total advertising expenditure on his side.

On the opposition side, the advertising came exclusively from partisan pages and Mundubile’s own page, with no advertising attributed to the NRPUP party itself.

The EU mission also explained that adverts running without disclaimers were excluded from its analysis. The figures therefore represent identified advertising expenditure within the mission’s monitoring methodology, not necessarily every campaign-related payment made across all platforms.

The report observed that UPND’s advertising strategy relied on buying reach through volume, placing adverts across large and numerous media pages, while NRPUP ran fewer adverts, but some travelled further.

It also noted that the spending was concentrated in the final two weeks of the campaign.

Salt Sana Movement among major advertising platforms

The report identifies the Salt Sana Movement as one of the major pages involved in advertising supporting Hichilema.

It says adverts from the movement combined messages promoting the Government’s record, including free education, the Constituency Development Fund and social cash transfers, with negative content targeting Mundubile.

The latter included accusations of corruption against the opposition candidate and messages warning about the possible consequences of a change of government.

The EU mission also observed that some pages within the wider network supporting the incumbent told its observers they had been paid to cover the President favourably, although the payments were not disclosed.

The report describes the UPND-supporting network as organised and extensive, involving institutional accounts, State and local administration pages, pseudo-media, party and fan pages, influencers and celebrity accounts.

By contrast, it describes the NRPUP online campaign as more organic, relying on clusters of like-minded pages, media and pseudo-media outlets, fan pages, former PF members and bloggers.

The mission noted that the opposition network had fewer pages, but some were more active and engaging. It also cautioned that several circulated disinformation extensively.

Social media became an alternative campaign platform

The EU report says social media extended the reach of the main candidates and offered those with fewer resources a relatively low-cost alternative to rallies and paid broadcasting.

The mission monitored 794 accounts and channels across Facebook, TikTok, X and YouTube, with its detailed content analysis focusing heavily on Facebook, the dominant platform in Zambia.

It analysed more than 24,000 Facebook posts published between May 21 and August 13, alongside thousands of comments.

Both leading candidates used campaign videos, crowd images and messages intended to demonstrate popularity and support.

Hichilema’s campaign focused on his record, infrastructure, education and promised jobs, while Mundubile’s campaign centred on mobilisation, promises of new infrastructure and grievances arising from disruptions to his rallies.

The report also found that both candidates regularly discredited each other, with negative messaging becoming even more frequent on pages supporting the two political camps.

It warned that the online environment contained a mixture of legitimate political claims, forged documents, unsubstantiated assertions, propaganda and conspiracy theories.

State media coverage heavily favoured the ruling party

Perhaps one of the most consequential sections of the report concerns the coverage provided by state-owned media.

The EU mission monitored 10 national media outlets between July 15 and August 12, 2026, assessing the amount of coverage allocated to political parties and candidates and whether the reporting was balanced.

Its findings showed a substantial disparity in the coverage given to the UPND and NRPUP by the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation (ZNBC).

According to the report, the UPND received:

• 96.2 per cent of election-related news airtime on ZNBC TV1.
• 90.5 per cent of election-related news airtime on ZNBC Radio 1.

The NRPUP received only:

• 2.1 per cent of election-related news coverage on ZNBC TV1.
• 6.4 per cent on ZNBC Radio 1.

The disparity was even more pronounced when the mission examined direct speech by the presidential candidates.

Hichilema accounted for 98.8 per cent of presidential candidates’ direct speech in ZNBC TV1 news, equivalent to 12 hours and 16 minutes, and 98.9 per cent on ZNBC Radio 1, equivalent to three hours and 22 minutes.

The report says Mundubile did not receive any direct speech in national television or radio news during the entire monitoring period.

It further observed that ZNBC TV1 broadcast the President’s live campaign rallies daily.

The EU mission concluded that the national broadcaster’s election coverage was overwhelmingly biased in favour of the UPND and the President, limiting voters’ access to information about the different political choices.

The report also found that the state-owned Zambia Daily Mail favoured the ruling party, allocating 85.4 per cent of its election-related news coverage to the UPND, compared with 11.4 per cent for the NRPUP.

The tone of coverage also differed. The newspaper’s coverage of the UPND was positive in 61 per cent of the assessed material, while the NRPUP received no positive coverage, with 40 per cent negative and 60 per cent neutral.

The EU mission recommended that state-owned media be disengaged from direct Government control and that ZNBC be transformed into a genuine public service broadcaster with editorial independence and balanced programming.

What about private and online media?

The report found that four of the seven private media outlets monitored provided equitable or reasonably balanced campaign coverage.

These were Diamond TV, Hot FM, Daily Nation and News Diggers!.

Phoenix FM, Power FM and Prime TV showed varying degrees of imbalance in favour of the UPND and the President.

The mission also analysed 7,979 posts from traditional and online media pages and blogs on Facebook.

It found that Hichilema was mentioned more frequently and more favourably than Mundubile, benefiting from extensive coverage by ZNBC and the private online outlet Mwebantu.

However, posts featuring Mundubile attracted more engagement.

The report identified the online media pages leaning towards Hichilema as being led by the state and Government-aligned cluster, including ZNBC, ZNBC Today, ZANIS, the Ministry of Information and Media and Zambia Daily Mail, alongside large private pages such as Mwebantu and Kalemba.

On the other side, the pages leaning towards Mundubile were led by Zambian Eye News and Zambian Whistleblower.

The report noted that although Hichilema was covered far more frequently, Mundubile’s posts generated more engagement per post.

It also observed that a small number of posts with exceptionally high engagement contributed significantly to Mundubile’s overall figures, particularly posts concerning the teargassing of his roadshow on July 16.

The mission further found that Mundubile received negative coverage across the monitoring period, with negative posts outnumbering positive ones by almost three to one.

The identification of Zambian Eye News in the report’s grouping of pages leaning towards Mundubile is part of the mission’s analysis of the online media landscape and should be understood within that context.

The bigger picture: Reach, resources and access to voters

The EU report presents a campaign in which the two leading candidates operated with significantly different levels of resources, audience size and media visibility.

Hichilema had a much larger Facebook following, benefited from overwhelmingly greater identified Meta advertising expenditure and received substantially more coverage from state-owned media.

Mundubile, however, generated more views and stronger engagement from a considerably smaller online audience.

The findings do not establish that social media views translated into votes, nor do they explain the election outcome on their own. They demonstrate how different forms of reach, paid promotion and media exposure shaped the campaign environment.

For Zambian Eye, one of the most important questions emerging from the report is whether voters had sufficiently balanced access to information about the candidates competing for their support.

The EU mission’s findings also renew the debate over the need for a level playing field, transparent political advertising and the independence of public broadcasters.

Ultimately, an election is not only about what happens at polling stations. It is also about the information voters receive, the voices they hear and the opportunities candidates have to communicate their messages.

The EU report has now put figures to a debate that is likely to continue: who had the greater visibility, who commanded the greater online engagement, and whether all candidates had a fair opportunity to reach Zambian voters.

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