In an earlier edition of this column, I described 2026 as Africa’s bumper election year because of the unusually crowded electoral calendar across the continent and singled out Zambia’s August 13 polls as the contest to watch. Whatever the outcome, this election, like the previous one, which propelled Hakainde Hichilema to victory, will be fought not only on the campaign trail but also in countless WhatsApp groups.

That should surprise no one. WhatsApp is now a veritable village square, interwoven so seamlessly into everyday life that conversations about politics now unfold alongside birthday wishes, funeral announcements, church notices, football banter and family gossip.

But WhatsApp’s political significance lies in something deeper than its massive popularity. Scholars have long argued that communication is not simply about transmitting information but about creating a shared understanding of issues of common interest. One famously described communication as a ritual through which societies produce and reproduce communities, while others have demonstrated how shared communication enables people to imagine themselves as part of the same political community. WhatsApp groups have become one of the main arenas where that collective meaning-making takes place.

That dynamic was evident in Zambia’s watershed 2021 election. The incumbent, the late Edgar Lungu, did not necessarily lose because opposition messages reached more voters than those of his then ruling Patriotic Front. He lost partly because millions of Zambians had spent months interpreting, reinterpreting, debating, and joking about the country’s political moment through countless WhatsApp exchanges.

Within WhatsApp groups, campaign speeches were clipped into bite-sized videos, voice notes offered running political commentary, and memes distilled complex policy debates into instantly recognisable humour, with supporters and critics alike becoming producers rather than mere consumers of political messages.

When election day rolled around, many citizens had already arrived at a shared reading of the election – one where economic hardship, youth unemployment, governance concerns, and the promise of change had become the dominant frame through which Lungu’s time at the helm, from June 2015 to August 2021, was judged.

African communication research explains why this matters. I’ve followed closely the work of Admire Mare of the University of Johannesburg and Hermann Wasserman of Stellenbosch University. Both have shown that messaging platforms such as WhatsApp have evolved beyond private communication into spaces where citizens actively negotiate political realities, challenge official narratives, and participate in public life.

WhatsApp groups may appear informal, and sometimes chaotic, but they collectively function as dispersed forums where electoral narratives are constantly assembled, contested, and remade. The app’s greatest political influence, therefore, may not lie in spreading campaign messages but in helping voters decide what those messages actually mean.

Five years on, the ingredients remain largely the same, only amplified. WhatsApp groups are once again humming with political debate, while Facebook, TikTok and X have become battlegrounds for campaign videos, livestreams, memes and competing narratives.

This has prompted news organisations, election observers and media watchdogs to step up efforts to monitor online content amid growing concern over disinformation. Unesco has even brought together editors to reinforce ethical reporting in the lead-up to election day, while the Zambia chapter of the Media Institute of Southern Africa has launched dedicated election coverage monitoring.

But focusing only on disinformation and its cousins, misinformation and malinformation, risks missing the bigger story, given that the real power of WhatsApp and other instant messaging platforms does not lie in their ability to spread messages but in their capacity to help citizens make sense of them. However modestly, every forwarded voice note, every political meme, every satirical skit and every spirited debate on WhatsApp contributes to a much broader conversation about what kind of country Zambia is and what kind of country citizens want it to be.

By the time ballots are cast on August 13, many Zambians will already have reached their own conclusions through many of these everyday digital encounters. The voters will determine who between Hichilema and his main challenger, Brian Mundubile, wins the Presidency, but the election’s meaning will have been negotiated long before polling-station doors open.

That’s why politicians would do well to remember that elections are no longer won solely through controlling the flow of information. They are increasingly influenced by those who control neither the microphone nor the political party manifesto – ordinary citizens.