🇿🇲 VIEWPOINT | Lungu Probe: The Dangerous Export of Zambian Politics into South Africa
We are watching an unusual and sobering development unfold in South Africa: a criminal investigation linked to the death of former President Edgar Chagwa Lungu, nearly eight months after he died in a clinic in June 2025.
What makes this moment significant is not simply the word “poisoning,” which has circulated loosely in political spaces for months. It is the fact that the matter has now entered the formal machinery of South African law enforcement, where sentiment does not substitute for procedure, and where grief does not override court orders.
A letter dated 11 February 2026 from Mashele Attorneys Inc, acting for members of the Lungu family, confirms that the South African Police Service has issued five subpoenas in connection with an alleged poisoning investigation. The lawyers state that the family has complied and that statements have been delivered “in accordance with the criminal proceedings instituted.”
This is the first clear documentary indication that the issue is no longer a Zambian political talking point. It is now a South African criminal file.
The same letter also records something even more sensitive: a subpoena issued to Two Mountains Funeral Services, directing that the former president’s body be released into SAPS custody. The family’s lawyers object, citing two existing High Court orders that the body must remain with the funeral home pending the finalisation of the appeal process.
This detail matters. Because it shows the investigation is intersecting directly with the unresolved repatriation dispute, which has already turned the former president’s remains into a political and legal battleground.
This is where we must pause.
For months, Lusaka’s opposition ecosystem has framed the entire standoff as persecution. The narrative has travelled from courtrooms into WhatsApp groups, from mourning into mobilisation. Some have alleged rituals. Others have claimed the state wants access to the body for sinister purposes. No independent evidence has been presented to support such claims, but the rumours have grown louder precisely because the body has remained out of public view.
But South Africa does not operate on PF political mythology.
South African institutions will not recognise “PF grief and ritual narratives” or “UPND noise.” They recognise subpoenas, forensic standards, court orders, and chain of custody. If there is a poisoning allegation, the answer will not come from a rally podium in Lusaka. It will come from toxicology, evidence, and judicial oversight.
It is also important to underline what the lawyers themselves say: their clients deny the poisoning allegations and maintain they are “unfounded and unsupported by credible evidence.” That is a crucial admission. The family is cooperating, but also placing on record that the allegation is not proven.
But back home, political actors are already attempting to weaponise the probe.
Figures like Sean Tembo are reportedly floating extreme claims of “manslaughter” against government officials, arguing that the former president was blocked from accessing medical care. This is not serious legal reasoning. It is campaign theatre dressed as prosecution. A state cannot be run through speculative indictments issued from Facebook manifestos.
The deeper danger is that Lungu is slowly being transformed from a former president into a political symbol beyond accountability, beyond evidence, beyond closure. In death, he is becoming a vessel into which every faction pours its agenda: the family’s legal fight, PF’s persecution script, opposition fundraising, and succession contests over his legacy.
This is not how republics bury leaders. This is how republics destabilise themselves.
We must resist the temptation to turn South Africa into an extension of our domestic disorder. If SAPS is investigating, let SAPS investigate. If the courts have issued orders, let those orders stand. If forensic clarity is required, let forensic clarity come.
A mature democracy does not fear truth. It fears myth replacing truth.
And Zambia cannot afford, in an election year, to build national politics on a corpse, a rumour, and a permanent grievance industry.
© The People’s Brief | Editors
This whole episode was brought by the Lungu family themselves,l remember even the announcement of the funeral itself has a lot of questions than answers from the daughter Tasila,then their an allegation of ECL being poisoned from the PF circles namely Raphael Nakachinda and Mr.Brian Mundubile… surprisingly the only people that were near ECL was the closest family members and the hospital staff..the question of poisoning can only be answered linked to the family and the closest friends who were visiting him . Let the police finish their work.