Her seat was declared vacant while her father was still not buried.
By: Mulundika Mukelebai
A daughter mourning.
A family dragged through courts.
A body lying cold in a mortuary.
And a nation told to move on.
The Government took Tasila Lungu Mwansa, her mother, and her siblings to court not allowing them space to grieve, not allowing them dignity, not allowing them peace. Because of that, she could not freely return home. She could not bury her father. She could not close the chapter of grief that every human being deserves to close.
Yet somehow, in the middle of this cruelty, she was expected to return to Zambia, walk into Parliament, take her seat, and listen as if nothing was wrong to sit there while Ba Deputy Second speaker curtailed debates “Honorable Member for Mpika take your seat”, while Ba Speaker shouted her “order Honorable Members”, while Ba First Deputy Speaker said “Mr Mpundu conclude” as if her heart was not breaking, as if her father’s body was not waiting in a mortuary.
What kind of pain asks for such performance?
How do you ask a daughter to debate policy when her father has not been laid to rest?
How do you measure attendance registers against a daughter’s tears?
How do you punish absence when absence itself was forced by power?
Tasila did not abandon her seat NO Grief was weaponised against her.
She chose humanity over hypocrisy.
She chose mourning over make-believe.
She chose to stand with her family when the State decided otherwise.
And for that, her seat was vacated.
But let the truth be told plainly and painfully:
No seat is more important than burying one’s father.
No parliamentary order outweighs a daughter’s right to mourn.
No political threat should ever silence grief.
They vacated her seat, yes.
But they exposed something far deeper and uglier a system willing to strip titles from a grieving daughter while her father still lies unburied.
History will not remember attendance records.
History will remember cruelty.
it will remember that the ruling party failed to get the seat even after allegedly over 3000 PF supporters defected to UPND.
It will remember how all of a sudden loadshedding returned during voter counting.
It will remember the mockery.
That’s history it always remembers!
Why do people twist things just to satisfy their line of thought? The court ruled twice that the body should be repatriated to Zambia, but it’s the family appeal those judgements. So, is it not the family that has caused this delay of the burial of the late former president? If they followed court rullings, burial would have taken place a long time ago
Who stopped them to bury the deceased? Or the deceased refused to be buried? Things never seen before as in culture aspects.