Zambia's electoral commission has announced that opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema has won last week’s presidential election, defeating incumbent Edgar Lungu by over a million votes.

This is Hichilema’s sixth attempt at winning the presidential election – narrowly losing out to Lungu in 2016 by 100,000 votes - however Lungu has alleged that the elections were not “free and fair”, BBC reports. He said officials from his Patriotic Front party has been chased away from polling stations, leaving the votes unguarded.

Nevertheless, officials from Hichilema’s United Party for National Development (UPND) party rebuffed Lungu’s statement as originating from people “trying to throw out the entire election just to cling on to their jobs.”

In the final vote count, Hichilema secured 2,810,777 votes over Lungu’s 1,814,201 votes, out of 7 million registered voters. “I therefore declare that the said Hichilema to be president of Zambia,” said electoral commission chairman, Esau Chulu in the results centre in Lusaka.

Global election observers praised Zambia’s transparent and peaceful organisation of the polls, but slammed the freedom of assembly and movement restrictions during the campaign.

Lungu’s six-year rule received heavy criticism for alleged human rights abuses, failing economy, corruption and huge unemployment.

Hichilema now faces a daunting challenge as his supporters look to him to eradicate corruption and hike employment. “We will fix this!” was one of the party’s campaign slogans.

Zambia recorded economic progress for over 10 years and achieved middle-income status back in 2011, yet now the country is beset by high inflation and high debt.

Agreed support from the International Monetary Fund for Zambia was postponed until after the election, along with a debt restructuring plan, aimed at easing the burden of poor countries, Reuters reports.