Africa-Press – Zambia. Electoral Commission of Zambia (ECZ) Corporate Affairs Manager Patricia Luhanga has said the commission want to see improved election reporting among journalists ahead of the 2026 General Election.
ECZ has started reconstituting Media Corps at the National and Provincial levels in a bid to improve its relationship with the press and get feedback on its operations in relation to the electoral process.
Ms. Patricia Luhanga said the commission has noted gaps in election reporting where some stakeholders such as persons with disabilities, women and youths are not effectively covered.
Ms. Luhanga revealed that ECZ has embarked on a program to facilitate journalists’ training on election reporting across the country in the run up to the 2026 polls.
She said ECZ will be training 150 journalists in election coverage yearly prior to the next general election. Ms. Luhanga was speaking to Radio Icengelo News in Ndola on Tuesday when ECZ conducted a training on election coverage at Protea Hotel in Ndola.
“Media plays a critical role in the electoral process and this is something as Electoral Commission of Zambia we keep repeating ourselves because we realise that for the electoral process to be fully understood by the different stakeholders the media comes in handy to help us disseminate information around our operations.
Therefore, enhancing our relationship with the media is something that is critical and if you look at the operations of the commission even from historical point of view you will realise that if there is one area where to the commission is big in terms of stakeholder engagement is media relations in particular,” Ms. Luhanga said. She said preparations for the coming general election in relation to media coverage should start now.
“Last year, when we went to the general election, we did undertake some media training but we also received feedback after the elections to see how we faired in our training and in terms of imparting knowledge and how this helped the media to cover the electoral process. One thing we realized is that for us to be able to fully get the benefits of election reporting by the media is to continuously train the media. We shouldn’t just wait for time when it is election period and that is when we go back to train. So, what we have done for this 2026 election cycle, we have started early and what we started with was reconstituting what is called the Media Corps. So, the Media Corps is more like a board constituted of media practitioners that help us as Electoral Commission of Zambia to cover the electoral process effectively,” she said.
Ms. Luhanga said the Electoral Commission of Zambia and politicians should not overshadow other key stakeholders in the electoral process when it comes to media coverage.
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