Africa-Press – Zambia. Find here below some simplified version of what our parliament will be soon after 2026 elections, this year.
✔️226 Elected MPs frT om 156
✔️40 elected by proportion representation (20 women, 15 youths & 5 disabled) from. We call this mixed member-majoritarian.
✔️ 11 nominated from 8
✔️3 Ex-officio (Vice President, Speaker & Deputy Speaker from 3=Total: 280 from 167 in recent past arrangement.
Further insights on Proportion Representation (PR) MPs under Mixed member-majoritarian
Their election is differently from the constituency MPs we vote for directly
✔️Based on presidential vote,
the 40 PR seats are allocated based on the share of votes each party gets in the presidential election, not a separate party-list ballot. So your vote for president does double duty hence the term proportion as in mathematics when dealing with ratios
✔️Lists of candidates will be submitted by political parties of each category among slots we call quotas for women, youths & PWDs beforehand. After the presidential results, seats are shared out to parties proportionally. Then each party fills its quota from its lists, only with women, youth, or PWDs as required.
Key difference vs constituency MPs:
✔️Constituency MP: You vote for a specific person in your area.
✔️PR MP: No direct vote for the person. ✔️Parties get seats based on their presidential vote share, then pick from pre-submitted lists to meet the women/youth/PWD quotas.
✔️This system is meant to improve representation for groups that are often underrepresented in first-past-the-post elections.
A difference on how PM MPs work compared to Constituency MPs
Constituency MPs
✔️Elected by voters in a specific Constituency
✔️Represent that geographic area and its people
✔️Have a local office, handle CDF projects there and attend to local issues
PR MPs
✔️PR MPs from the reserved seats get
elected through party lists based on the national presidential vote
✔️No geographic constituency to call their own
✔️Their mandate is to represent their specific group nationwide – women, youth, or persons with disabilities
✔️They operate as national MPs, not local ones
✔️They still sit in Parliament, debate, vote, and can be assigned to committees just like other MPs.
Further note that Constituency MPs are local reps while PR MPs are special-interest reps for the whole country
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