Zambian Presidential Funeral Row and Political Crisis

There’s some interesting politics going on in Zambia right now. I’ve asked GenAI for a brief summary.

I need to search for current information about Zambian politics and Edgar Lungu, as this involves recent political developments. Currently the body of the former president is still in South Africa almost two weeks after his death as the government has proposed a state burial which they are bound to do and the family are refusing.

Edgar Lungu’s Death and Political Tensions

Former Zambian President Edgar Lungu died on Thursday at the age of 68, six months after an attempted return to politics was thwarted by a court ruling that he could not run for office again. On the morning of 5 June 2025, Lungu died after suffering cardiac complications from a surgery he was undergoing at the Mediclinic Medforum in Pretoria, South Africa.

The Funeral Row and Political Crisis

Lungu’s death has sparked a major political crisis centered around funeral arrangements:

Family vs. Government Standoff:

The row over the funeral of former Zambian president Edgar Lungu shows no sign of letting up after his family announced on Friday that Lungu had left instructions that the current president, Hakainde Hichilema, should not be allowed “anywhere near his body.”

Competing Mourning Venues

The government announced there would be a state funeral and declared that the official venue for mourning would be a lodge it owns in the capital, Lusaka, but the PF dismissed this plan, directing mourners to its headquarters instead.

Background Political Tensions

The current crisis stems from deep-seated political rivalry:

- The pair are long-time rivals – in 2017, when Lungu was president, he had Hichilema locked up for over 100 days on treason charges after Hichilema’s motorcade allegedly refused to give way for him.
- Lungu’s party, the Patriotic Front (PF), claims that he had been barred from leaving the country to seek medical treatment for several years.
- Lungu claimed last year that his movements were being monitored by police and he had effectively been placed under house arrest to restrict his return to politics.

Impact on Opposition Politics

Lungu’s passing leaves a vacuum that will reshape the power contest before the 2026 general elections, testing the weakening opposition’s resilience and the UPND’s adaptability. The death creates a leadership crisis for the opposition Patriotic Front, which had unified around Lungu despite his disqualification from the 2026 elections by the Constitutional Court.

The situation reveals deep political polarization in Zambia and questions about President Hichilema’s leadership approach during this crisis.

have you got your bailout bags ready?

How far are you from the airport?

dr. willy PhD "snigger"

Quote:

I’ve asked GenAI for a brief summary.

https://www.failure.at/wp-content/up...lm_implied.png

i asked genAI for a brief summary of the facepalm.

Quote:

AI Overview

A facepalm is a gesture where someone covers their face with their hand, often to express frustration, embarrassment, or disappointment.
It's a common way to show exasperation or disbelief, either in real life or online, often as a meme.

Here's a more detailed explanation:
Gesture:
The physical act of placing one's hand against their face, either covering the eyes, forehead, or entire face.

Meaning:
It signifies a range of negative emotions, including:

Frustration: Feeling annoyed or exasperated.

Embarrassment: Feeling ashamed or awkward about something.

Disappointment: Feeling let down or discouraged.

Disbelief: Feeling surprised or unable to accept something.

honestly willy. your idiocy knows no bounds

The ambiguous "GorillaWilly" might have been a better name.

Didn't you post elsewhere that six inches was well beyond your specs, cashew cock?

:D

Quote:

Originally Posted by malmomike77

have you got your bailout bags ready?

Quote:

Originally Posted by cyrille

How far are you from the airport?

leaving this arvo, thanks for the concern.

Quote:

Originally Posted by taxexile

dr. willy PhD "snigger"

There wasn’t a new article succinct enough for you to grasp it.

I dunno if it’s hit the news yet, but the president has canceled his visit to Rome as a precaution. That’s a good indication that they’re worried.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrWilly

There wasn’t a new article succinct enough for you to grasp it.

I dunno if it’s hit the news yet, but the president has canceled his visit to Rome as a precaution. That’s a good indication that they’re worried.

If it's not hit the news yet did he just tell you that

Refuge will always be available at the Lusaka Golf clubs 19th .

1 Attachment(s)

The plot thickens.

Attachment 125665

And speaking of the meeting (to sign off on the Lobito corridor) in Rome, the delegation was going to be 50 people strong (a few WAGS involved in that), all on a mix of First and Business class. No wonder the country struggles to pay bills.

The body was due back yesterday, but the former president's family stopped the charter flight, again.

Edgar Lungu: Zambian ex-president'''s family halts return of his body from South Africa

The family of Zambia's former President Edgar Lungu has halted the return of his body from South Africa, accusing the government of breaching key agreements over his funeral.
The arrangements had been finalised and his remains were due to be flown back home on Wednesday on a private charter plane after days of uncertainty and negotiations between the family and the government.
But the family has now stopped that plan, saying it "finds it very difficult to believe that the government will stick to their end of the agreement".
"Sadly so, that the mortal remains of President Edgar Chagwa Lungu will not return today," family spokesperson Makebi Zulu said on Wednesday.

Mr Zulu said the government had released a draft programme of the funeral, without consultation with the family.

Funeral row causes chaos for mourners of Zambia's ex-president

President Hakainde Hichilema was scheduled to receive the body upon its arrival at the airport in the capital, Lusaka.
The former president's body was set to be taken to his residence in Lusaka where it would lie in state ahead of his state funeral on 22 June and burial the following day.
In an address from South Africa on Wednesday, Mr Zulu said the government had deviated from the agreed programme.
"It is our hope that some day, his remains will be repatriated back home and buried," said Mr Zulu, who was surrounded by members of Lungu's immediate family.
The government is yet to comment.
The delay marks the second time the family has refused to repatriate the body, as tensions continue to grow between it and the government over who should control the funeral arrangements.
The opposition Patriotic Front (PF), which Lungu led until his death, has supported the family's stance and accused the government of politicising the mourning process.
Lungu, who led Zambia from 2015 to 2021, died earlier this month in South Africa where he was receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness.
A 16-day national mourning period is currently in effect across Zambia.
According to his family, he had left instructions that President Hichilema, his long-standing rival, "should not come anywhere near his body".
But this was apparently resolved after a deal that allowed for Hichilema to preside over a state funeral next Sunday.
After six years as head of state, Lungu lost the 2021 election to Hichilema by a large margin.
After that defeat he stepped back from politics but later returned to the fray.
He had ambitions to vie for the presidency again but at the end of last year the Constitutional Court barred him from running, ruling that he had already served the maximum two terms allowed by law.
Despite his disqualification from the presidential election, he remained hugely influential in Zambian politics and did not hold back in his criticism of his successor.
Last year, Lungu complained of police harassment and accused the authorities of effectively putting him under house arrest. He also said he had been prevented from leaving the country. The government denied both accusations.

The personal has become very political in Zambia.

Mourning and the build-up to a funeral is never an easy time, but throw in the fallout from a long-standing feud between the country's two top politicians – President Hakainde Hichilema and his now-late predecessor Edgar Lungu - and you have an explosive mix.

The animosity was such that Lungu's family said one of his dying wishes was that Hichilema should not go anywhere near his body.

The row has scuppered government plans to honour the former head of state, created a distressing rift in the country and left people wondering how things got this bad.

ADVERTISEMENT

Sunday was supposed to see the state funeral for the 68-year-old who governed for six years from 2015. But there will be no visiting dignitaries and the venue – a huge conference centre in the heart of the capital, Lusaka – will lie empty.

There was already a hint of possible trouble ahead immediately after Lungu's death on 5 June, in the video message shared by his daughter on Facebook.

Dressed in a thick, black jacket and holding back tears, Tasila Lungu said that her father had died in a hospital in South Africa where he was being treated with "dignity and privacy".

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/ws/640/...205f1.jpg.webpIMAGE SOURCE, PF

Image caption, A memorial service has already been held by Lungu's Patriotic Front party in South Africa - attended by his family, including his widowShe rounded off the one-minute announcement saying that "in this moment of grief, we invoke the spirit of 'One Zambia, One Nation' – the timeless creed that guided President Lungu's service to our country".

To highlight the need for unity at a time when tradition suggested that the nation should naturally come together was a clue that all was not well.

And there was another issue: where was the president's announcement?

Ms Lungu's statement confirmed social media rumours of her father's death, condolence messages were already being sent, including from Kenya's president, but there was no word from Hichilema.

While independent outlets were reporting the news, the national broadcaster, ZNBC, remained silent.

Then, three hours after the daughter's post, Zambia's head of state shared his thoughts in a text post on Facebook. He made his own appeal for unity, asking people to "uphold the values of peace, dignity and togetherness that define us as Zambians".

Information Minister Cornelius Mweetwa dismissed concerns about the delay in Hichilema talking about the death. He told the the BBC that based on precedent it was not the head of state's role to be the first to announce the passing of a predecessor.

Nevertheless, Lungu's supporters felt that Hichilema's message of "togetherness" rang hollow.

Hichilema finally became president at his sixth attempt after soundly beating Lungu at the polls in 2021. It was their third electoral match-up but the enmity went beyond ballot-box rivalry.

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/ws/640/...db98d.jpg.webpIMAGE SOURCE, AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Image caption, Hichilema (C) was greeted by supporters on his release from prison in August 2017The key to understanding this was the more than 100 days that Hichilema, opposition leader at the time, spent in detention in 2017, awaiting trial on treason charges.

He was accused of endangering the life of then-President Lungu after his motorcade allegedly refused to give way to the one transporting the head of state.

The charges were only dropped after the intervention of the secretary general of the Commonwealth.

Later that year, Hichilema told the BBC that he had been held in solitary confinement for the first eight days in degrading and inhumane conditions "without electricity, without water, without a toilet". He blamed Lungu personally for his imprisonment.

This was only one of 17 occasions that Hichilema was arrested. Supporters of his United Party for National Development were also harassed by supporters of the governing Patriotic Front (PF).

The 2021 election could have drawn a line under things.

Lungu, who had been rejected by a margin of almost a million votes by an electorate fed up with corruption allegations and concerns about apparent anti-democratic behaviour, went into political retirement.

But as disillusionment with the Hichilema presidency grew because of continued economic hardships, Lungu sensed an opportunity and announced in October 2023 that he was returning to frontline politics.

Soon after that announcement, Lungu was stripped of his retirement benefits and privileges by the state as he had returned to active politics.

This decision rankled with the former president and his family.

Lungu also complained of police harassment. At one point last year he said he was "virtually under house arrest".

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/ws/640/...31f5e.jpg.webpIMAGE SOURCE, ANDY LUKI JR

Image caption, Some of Lungu's supporters went with him on his regular runs, described by police as "political activism"In 2023, the police warned him against jogging in public, describing his weekly workouts as "political activism".

"I cannot move out of my house without being accosted and challenged by the police and driving me back home," Lungu told the BBC in May 2024.

In that interview, he also alleged that he had been barred from attending a conference overseas and from travelling abroad for medical treatment.

The information minister vehemently denied that there was ever a travel ban and described the idea that his movement was restricted in Zambia as a "fiction and a figment of the imagination of politically charged mindsets".

Mweetwa added that despite Hichilema's treatment when he was in opposition, he was determined not to do the same to Lungu.

There are also accusations that the president's anti-corruption crusade targeted those close to the former governing PF, including Lungu's family.

His widow, who continues to be investigated, has been taken to court and lost properties. Some of his children, including Tasila, have also faced similar treatment - they all deny wrongdoing.

Then at the end of last year the Constitutional Court barred him from running for president again, ruling that he had already served the maximum two terms allowed by law.

The former head of state was angry about the way he felt he had been treated.

"There was no love between the two men and [Lungu] was of the view that: 'I don't want people to pretend in my death that they cared about me when in fact, not'," the family's lawyer Makebi Zulu said.

Lungu eventually managed to get to South Africa in January, but Mr Zulu said that he was told by his doctors, after a series of tests, that had he gone for a check-up earlier, the treatment would have had a greater chance of success.

It was not disclosed what he was suffering from.

It was, in part, in light of this that Lungu said he "wouldn't want the current president to attend his funeral".

The government has rejected the idea that Lungu was stopped from going to see his doctors in South Africa.

Following his death, the family wanted to be in charge of the funeral arrangements, but the Zambian authorities sought to take control.

Despite the ill-feeling, last weekend it looked like a compromise had been reached and plans were made for a state funeral.

But relations once again broke down as the family said the government had reneged on the agreement after releasing a programme showing more involvement by Hichilema than had been planned.

In a message on Thursday, the president thanked Zambians for their "resilience, patience, solidarity and calmness during this time" but after doing "everything possible to engage the family... we have reached a point where a clear decision has to be made".

With that, the funeral arrangements in Zambia were put on hold and the national period of mourning was abruptly cut short.

The burial is now set to take place in South Africa and it seems unlikely that Hichilema will attend.

Zambians had been hoping for both Hichilema and Lungu to bury their differences, but this death and the events that followed, have denied people the closure and reconciliation they desperately wanted to see between the two.

Those differences have also denied many millions of Zambians the opportunity to mourn and pay their last respects to a man who once ruled
The personal has become very political in Zambia.

Mourning and the build-up to a funeral is never an easy time, but throw in the fallout from a long-standing feud between the country's two top politicians – President Hakainde Hichilema and his now-late predecessor Edgar Lungu - and you have an explosive mix.

The animosity was such that Lungu's family said one of his dying wishes was that Hichilema should not go anywhere near his body.

The row has scuppered government plans to honour the former head of state, created a distressing rift in the country and left people wondering how things got this bad.

ADVERTISEMENT

Sunday was supposed to see the state funeral for the 68-year-old who governed for six years from 2015. But there will be no visiting dignitaries and the venue – a huge conference centre in the heart of the capital, Lusaka – will lie empty.

There was already a hint of possible trouble ahead immediately after Lungu's death on 5 June, in the video message shared by his daughter on Facebook.

Dressed in a thick, black jacket and holding back tears, Tasila Lungu said that her father had died in a hospital in South Africa where he was being treated with "dignity and privacy".

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/ws/640/...205f1.jpg.webpIMAGE SOURCE, PF

Image caption, A memorial service has already been held by Lungu's Patriotic Front party in South Africa - attended by his family, including his widowShe rounded off the one-minute announcement saying that "in this moment of grief, we invoke the spirit of 'One Zambia, One Nation' – the timeless creed that guided President Lungu's service to our country".

To highlight the need for unity at a time when tradition suggested that the nation should naturally come together was a clue that all was not well.

And there was another issue: where was the president's announcement?

Ms Lungu's statement confirmed social media rumours of her father's death, condolence messages were already being sent, including from Kenya's president, but there was no word from Hichilema.

While independent outlets were reporting the news, the national broadcaster, ZNBC, remained silent.

Then, three hours after the daughter's post, Zambia's head of state shared his thoughts in a text post on Facebook. He made his own appeal for unity, asking people to "uphold the values of peace, dignity and togetherness that define us as Zambians".

Information Minister Cornelius Mweetwa dismissed concerns about the delay in Hichilema talking about the death. He told the the BBC that based on precedent it was not the head of state's role to be the first to announce the passing of a predecessor.

Nevertheless, Lungu's supporters felt that Hichilema's message of "togetherness" rang hollow.

Hichilema finally became president at his sixth attempt after soundly beating Lungu at the polls in 2021. It was their third electoral match-up but the enmity went beyond ballot-box rivalry.

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/ws/640/...db98d.jpg.webpIMAGE SOURCE, AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Image caption, Hichilema (C) was greeted by supporters on his release from prison in August 2017The key to understanding this was the more than 100 days that Hichilema, opposition leader at the time, spent in detention in 2017, awaiting trial on treason charges.

He was accused of endangering the life of then-President Lungu after his motorcade allegedly refused to give way to the one transporting the head of state.

The charges were only dropped after the intervention of the secretary general of the Commonwealth.

Later that year, Hichilema told the BBC that he had been held in solitary confinement for the first eight days in degrading and inhumane conditions "without electricity, without water, without a toilet". He blamed Lungu personally for his imprisonment.

This was only one of 17 occasions that Hichilema was arrested. Supporters of his United Party for National Development were also harassed by supporters of the governing Patriotic Front (PF).

The 2021 election could have drawn a line under things.

Lungu, who had been rejected by a margin of almost a million votes by an electorate fed up with corruption allegations and concerns about apparent anti-democratic behaviour, went into political retirement.

But as disillusionment with the Hichilema presidency grew because of continued economic hardships, Lungu sensed an opportunity and announced in October 2023 that he was returning to frontline politics.

Soon after that announcement, Lungu was stripped of his retirement benefits and privileges by the state as he had returned to active politics.

This decision rankled with the former president and his family.

Lungu also complained of police harassment. At one point last year he said he was "virtually under house arrest".

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/ws/640/...31f5e.jpg.webpIMAGE SOURCE, ANDY LUKI JR

Image caption, Some of Lungu's supporters went with him on his regular runs, described by police as "political activism"In 2023, the police warned him against jogging in public, describing his weekly workouts as "political activism".

"I cannot move out of my house without being accosted and challenged by the police and driving me back home," Lungu told the BBC in May 2024.

In that interview, he also alleged that he had been barred from attending a conference overseas and from travelling abroad for medical treatment.

The information minister vehemently denied that there was ever a travel ban and described the idea that his movement was restricted in Zambia as a "fiction and a figment of the imagination of politically charged mindsets".

Mweetwa added that despite Hichilema's treatment when he was in opposition, he was determined not to do the same to Lungu.

There are also accusations that the president's anti-corruption crusade targeted those close to the former governing PF, including Lungu's family.

His widow, who continues to be investigated, has been taken to court and lost properties. Some of his children, including Tasila, have also faced similar treatment - they all deny wrongdoing.

Then at the end of last year the Constitutional Court barred him from running for president again, ruling that he had already served the maximum two terms allowed by law.

The former head of state was angry about the way he felt he had been treated.

"There was no love between the two men and [Lungu] was of the view that: 'I don't want people to pretend in my death that they cared about me when in fact, not'," the family's lawyer Makebi Zulu said.

Lungu eventually managed to get to South Africa in January, but Mr Zulu said that he was told by his doctors, after a series of tests, that had he gone for a check-up earlier, the treatment would have had a greater chance of success.

It was not disclosed what he was suffering from.

It was, in part, in light of this that Lungu said he "wouldn't want the current president to attend his funeral".

The government has rejected the idea that Lungu was stopped from going to see his doctors in South Africa.

Following his death, the family wanted to be in charge of the funeral arrangements, but the Zambian authorities sought to take control.

Despite the ill-feeling, last weekend it looked like a compromise had been reached and plans were made for a state funeral.

But relations once again broke down as the family said the government had reneged on the agreement after releasing a programme showing more involvement by Hichilema than had been planned.

In a message on Thursday, the president thanked Zambians for their "resilience, patience, solidarity and calmness during this time" but after doing "everything possible to engage the family... we have reached a point where a clear decision has to be made".

With that, the funeral arrangements in Zambia were put on hold and the national period of mourning was abruptly cut short.

The burial is now set to take place in South Africa and it seems unlikely that Hichilema will attend.

Zambians had been hoping for both Hichilema and Lungu to bury their differences, but this death and the events that followed, have denied people the closure and reconciliation they desperately wanted to see between the two.

Those differences have also denied many millions of Zambians the opportunity to mourn and pay their last respects to a man who once ruled them.

The personal has become very political in Zambia.

Mourning and the build-up to a funeral is never an easy time, but throw in the fallout from a long-standing feud between the country's two top politicians – President Hakainde Hichilema and his now-late predecessor Edgar Lungu - and you have an explosive mix.

The animosity was such that Lungu's family said one of his dying wishes was that Hichilema should not go anywhere near his body.

The row has scuppered government plans to honour the former head of state, created a distressing rift in the country and left people wondering how things got this bad.

ADVERTISEMENT

Sunday was supposed to see the state funeral for the 68-year-old who governed for six years from 2015. But there will be no visiting dignitaries and the venue – a huge conference centre in the heart of the capital, Lusaka – will lie empty.

There was already a hint of possible trouble ahead immediately after Lungu's death on 5 June, in the video message shared by his daughter on Facebook.

Dressed in a thick, black jacket and holding back tears, Tasila Lungu said that her father had died in a hospital in South Africa where he was being treated with "dignity and privacy".

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/ws/640/...205f1.jpg.webpIMAGE SOURCE, PF

Image caption, A memorial service has already been held by Lungu's Patriotic Front party in South Africa - attended by his family, including his widowShe rounded off the one-minute announcement saying that "in this moment of grief, we invoke the spirit of 'One Zambia, One Nation' – the timeless creed that guided President Lungu's service to our country".

To highlight the need for unity at a time when tradition suggested that the nation should naturally come together was a clue that all was not well.

And there was another issue: where was the president's announcement?

Ms Lungu's statement confirmed social media rumours of her father's death, condolence messages were already being sent, including from Kenya's president, but there was no word from Hichilema.

While independent outlets were reporting the news, the national broadcaster, ZNBC, remained silent.

Then, three hours after the daughter's post, Zambia's head of state shared his thoughts in a text post on Facebook. He made his own appeal for unity, asking people to "uphold the values of peace, dignity and togetherness that define us as Zambians".

Information Minister Cornelius Mweetwa dismissed concerns about the delay in Hichilema talking about the death. He told the the BBC that based on precedent it was not the head of state's role to be the first to announce the passing of a predecessor.

Nevertheless, Lungu's supporters felt that Hichilema's message of "togetherness" rang hollow.

Hichilema finally became president at his sixth attempt after soundly beating Lungu at the polls in 2021. It was their third electoral match-up but the enmity went beyond ballot-box rivalry.

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/ws/640/...db98d.jpg.webpIMAGE SOURCE, AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Image caption, Hichilema (C) was greeted by supporters on his release from prison in August 2017The key to understanding this was the more than 100 days that Hichilema, opposition leader at the time, spent in detention in 2017, awaiting trial on treason charges.

He was accused of endangering the life of then-President Lungu after his motorcade allegedly refused to give way to the one transporting the head of state.

The charges were only dropped after the intervention of the secretary general of the Commonwealth.

Later that year, Hichilema told the BBC that he had been held in solitary confinement for the first eight days in degrading and inhumane conditions "without electricity, without water, without a toilet". He blamed Lungu personally for his imprisonment.

This was only one of 17 occasions that Hichilema was arrested. Supporters of his United Party for National Development were also harassed by supporters of the governing Patriotic Front (PF).

The 2021 election could have drawn a line under things.

Lungu, who had been rejected by a margin of almost a million votes by an electorate fed up with corruption allegations and concerns about apparent anti-democratic behaviour, went into political retirement.

But as disillusionment with the Hichilema presidency grew because of continued economic hardships, Lungu sensed an opportunity and announced in October 2023 that he was returning to frontline politics.

Soon after that announcement, Lungu was stripped of his retirement benefits and privileges by the state as he had returned to active politics.

This decision rankled with the former president and his family.

Lungu also complained of police harassment. At one point last year he said he was "virtually under house arrest".

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/ace/ws/640/...31f5e.jpg.webpIMAGE SOURCE, ANDY LUKI JR

Image caption, Some of Lungu's supporters went with him on his regular runs, described by police as "political activism"In 2023, the police warned him against jogging in public, describing his weekly workouts as "political activism".

"I cannot move out of my house without being accosted and challenged by the police and driving me back home," Lungu told the BBC in May 2024.

In that interview, he also alleged that he had been barred from attending a conference overseas and from travelling abroad for medical treatment.

The information minister vehemently denied that there was ever a travel ban and described the idea that his movement was restricted in Zambia as a "fiction and a figment of the imagination of politically charged mindsets".

Mweetwa added that despite Hichilema's treatment when he was in opposition, he was determined not to do the same to Lungu.

There are also accusations that the president's anti-corruption crusade targeted those close to the former governing PF, including Lungu's family.

His widow, who continues to be investigated, has been taken to court and lost properties. Some of his children, including Tasila, have also faced similar treatment - they all deny wrongdoing.

Then at the end of last year the Constitutional Court barred him from running for president again, ruling that he had already served the maximum two terms allowed by law.

The former head of state was angry about the way he felt he had been treated.

"There was no love between the two men and [Lungu] was of the view that: 'I don't want people to pretend in my death that they cared about me when in fact, not'," the family's lawyer Makebi Zulu said.

Lungu eventually managed to get to South Africa in January, but Mr Zulu said that he was told by his doctors, after a series of tests, that had he gone for a check-up earlier, the treatment would have had a greater chance of success.

It was not disclosed what he was suffering from.

It was, in part, in light of this that Lungu said he "wouldn't want the current president to attend his funeral".

The government has rejected the idea that Lungu was stopped from going to see his doctors in South Africa.

Following his death, the family wanted to be in charge of the funeral arrangements, but the Zambian authorities sought to take control.

Despite the ill-feeling, last weekend it looked like a compromise had been reached and plans were made for a state funeral.

But relations once again broke down as the family said the government had reneged on the agreement after releasing a programme showing more involvement by Hichilema than had been planned.

In a message on Thursday, the president thanked Zambians for their "resilience, patience, solidarity and calmness during this time" but after doing "everything possible to engage the family... we have reached a point where a clear decision has to be made".

With that, the funeral arrangements in Zambia were put on hold and the national period of mourning was abruptly cut short.

The burial is now set to take place in South Africa and it seems unlikely that Hichilema will attend.

Zambians had been hoping for both Hichilema and Lungu to bury their differences, but this death and the events that followed, have denied people the closure and reconciliation they desperately wanted to see between the two.

Those differences have also denied many millions of Zambians the opportunity to mourn and pay their last respects to a man who once ruled them.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c86gqjv2zjdo.amp

.Attorney general seeks to block former president Lungu’s burial in South Africa, court hearing set for tomorrow morning!

Attorney General, Mulilo Kabesha has filed a public interest lawsuit in the Gauteng Division of the High Court of South Africa, Pretoria.

The suit is directed against members of the late President’s family and two other individuals, seeking an interim court order to prevent the burial of the late 6th Republican President, Dr. Edgar Chagwa Lungu.

The Attorney General requests that no burial take place until all disputes regarding Dr. Lungu’s final resting place are resolved specifically, whether he should be interred in Zambia with full military honours, customs, and traditions, as mandated by Zambian law and in keeping with public interest.

In his application, the Attorney General contends that a state funeral for a former Zambian Head of State is a formal public event governed by strict military protocols and intended to honour individuals of national significance.

He further argues that, even if it were true a point he denies that the late President wished not to have a state funeral, such personal wishes must yield to the greater public interest.

The Attorney General also cites legal precedent, noting that the Zambian courts previously set aside the burial wishes of the nation’s founding President, Dr. Kenneth Kaunda, in favour of public interest considerations relating to interment at Embassy Park.

Those named in the lawsuit include former First Lady Esther Nyawa Lungu, Bertha Lungu, Tasila Lungu, Chiyesu Lungu, Dalitso Lungu, Charles Phiri, and Makebi Zulu.

The Attorney General has additionally named Two Mountains Pty (the Morgue), where Dr. Lungu’s remains are currently held, as a respondent.

This action has been brought before the Pretoria High Court under Article 177(5)(c) of the Constitution of the Republic of Zambia, in the Attorney General’s capacity as government representative and protector of the Zambian public interest.

Hearing of the Interim Interdict Application against the burial is expected to be heard tomorrow, Wednesday 25th June 2025 at 08:00hrs in the morning.

-ZNBC

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