224 MPs Take Their Oath As Parliament Reopens, But The Seats For Women, Youth And Disabled Zambians Are Still Empty

LUSAKA. Zambia's 14th National Assembly began work this week, with Vice President Mutale Nalumango taking her oath of office as a Member of Parliament at 09:00 hours on Monday, September 7, inside the National Assembly chamber. Some 112 other MPs followed her that same morning. The remaining MPs among the 224 confirmed winners were sworn in on Tuesday, September 8, to complete the process before the House can elect a Speaker and hear the President's opening address. Dr Nalumango called the oath "a solemn commitment to serve our people with integrity, discipline and dedication" and appealed to MPs across party lines to put the country first. Her call for cross-party cooperation is not just convention. Independents, at 20 seats, now outnumber every party in Parliament except the two main ones, UPND and NRPUP. ## A Parliament still missing its 40 "inclusion" seats The 2026 election was the first held under Constitution of Zambia (Amendment) Act No. 13 of 2025, which restructured the National Assembly into a mixed system. Alongside the 226 constituency seats decided by first-past-the-post voting, the law created 40 new proportional representation seats, allocated to political parties based on their share of the presidential vote rather than won locally: 20 reserved for women, 15 for young people aged 18 to 35, and 5 for Zambians with disabilities. Add the President's power to appoint up to 11 more MPs, plus the Vice President, Speaker and two deputy speakers, and the House is designed to hold 280 members in total. None of the 40 reserved seats were part of this week's ceremony. ECZ Chief Electoral Officer Brown Kasaro confirmed on September 5 that only two parties, UPND and NRPUP, currently qualify for proportional representation seats, based on the presidential result. He said the Commission had not yet received the parties' lists of named candidates for the women's, youth's and disability seats, because the allocation process had not reached that stage. Under the