Incumbent President Edgar Lungu has retained his position after defeating his closest rival Hakainde Hichilema of the UPND by 100, 530 to secure the required 50%+1 threshold.
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The electoral commission requires the victor to have more than 50% of the votes to avoid a runoff election.
Lungu has been in office for just 19 months after he first took power previous year when he beat Hichilema by less than 28,000 votes in a snap election following the death in office of president Michael Sata.
With 50.14%, Lungu was placed just ahead of Hichilema, with 47.7%, following the collation of votes from 132 of the 156 constituencies in the southern African nation.
He said the party was confident the Constitutional Court would declare the election result invalid.
Both the ECZ and Patriotic Front have rejected Hichilema’s claims, with one of the ruling party’s officials accusing the opposition leader of making inflammatory statements.
“Our main concern is that Mr Hichilema has made a decision to take his frustrations to a criminal level”, said Given Lubinda, a member of the parliament dissolved ahead of the vote.
The UNPD accused Zambia’s election commission of bias favoring the PF, and demanded a recount of votes in the capital of Lukasa.
Earlier, the commission hoped to deliver a final tally by early Sunday.
The opposition, however, has launched a challenge to the result and will appear in court later in the week, Al Jazeera’s Page said.
All parties have access to the raw voting data and may add up the results faster than the national commission.
In that election, Mr. Lungu defeated Mr. Hichilema by fewer than 28,000 votes.
“They have taken long to release the results”.
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Last year’s election was held because President Michael Sata died in office – the second time this has happened in Zambia in less than five years.
