Litigating and Adjudicating Electoral Disputes in Hybrid Regimes: Evidence from Zambia

Courts in backsliding and hybrid regimes are increasingly asked to settle electoral disputes. What explains the judicialization of elections in such regimes and to what extent do their courts adjudicate electoral disputes free from political influence? We argue that in hybrid regimes, mounting legal challenges against the elections of opposition candidates can be a strategy through which executives try to consolidate control over the legislature following narrow electoral victories. Moreover, executive dominance over the judiciary creates pressures for judges to adjudicate in line with executive interests. Yet, as long as executive survival is not at stake, the executive may be reluctant to openly attack the judiciary, thus allowing judges some space for independently adjudicating electoral disputes. We investigate the politics of electoral disputes using a novel dataset of electoral petitions following the 2011, 2016, and 2021 Zambian elections.