The missed opportunities in the ongoing Edgar Lungu burial row-Sishuwa Sishuwa

The missed opportunities in the ongoing Edgar Lungu burial row

By Sishuwa Sishuwa

I had a live interview with Hot FM radio station earlier today on the ongoing dispute between the Zambian government and the family of former president Edgar Lungu regarding his burial. Given that it was a 10 minutes discussion – that was further disrupted by signal interference – I have taken the liberty to develop or expand the thoughts I shared on the programme in response to the questions that were posed. I have requested the radio station to share the recording and will it when it becomes available.

What is your assessment of how the government, and the President have handled the death of former President Edgar Lungu?

The government have handled Lungu’s death very poorly. We know that the relationship between Lungu and Hichilema was fractious but following his death, the president missed several opportunities that presented themselves for him to rise above personal feelings and emerge as the bigger person. I will highlight five.

First, after Lungu ‘died and in the spirit of unity, the president could have gone to the PF secretariat where the main opposition party were grieving from to plead with the PF to say ‘I know we are political opponents, but we are not enemies. In difficult times like this, let us put our differences aside and mourn together. Let us go and mourn in one place that can accommodate more people’. Instead, he set up a parallel funeral venue without consensus and missed the opportunity to use a sorrowful moment to build bridges with his political rivals, subordinate his ego to the grieving collective, and rally people above narrow partisan considerations. It is worth noting that the PF only set up a funeral venue after the government delayed in setting up one. So the management of the funeral venue was one missed opportunity.

Second, when differences emerged between the family and the government over the repatriation of Lungu’s remains from South Africa to Zambia, the President could have sent people who enjoyed the trust and respect of the family to negotiate but he sent the likes of Leslie Mbula, Enoch Kavindele, Mulambo Haimbe – people who had made bashing Lungu in life a past time. Even after his death, some of those he sent to South Africa were fresh from saying hurtful stuff about Lungu. That was mockery and did not help matters. So the composition of the delegation that was dispatched to go and negotiation with the family was another missed opportunity.

Third, when the family said Lungu did not want Hichilema to attend the funeral, the President could have pledged to stay away from the funeral out of respect for the grieving family. The death of Lungu is primarily a family issue and the family should have been allowed to have a final say on all matters relating to the disposal of his remains. It is publicly known that after Lungu’s death, the family disclosed that the deceased had told them that in the event of his death, and largely because of how poorly he felt the government had treated him in life, he did not want his successor anywhere near his funeral. What the president should have done is to facilitate the wishes of the family to be realised. And those wishes were clear and simple: that Lungu did not want President Hichilema to attend his funeral.

Lungu’s expressed wish bears a striking resemblance to what happened in the United States in 2018 when then Arizona Senator John McCain told friends and family that he did not want President Donald Trump, with whom he had a turbulent relationship, to attend his funeral when he died. And indeed, when McCain died in August that year, Trump did not attend his funeral out of respect for the McCain family and friends. Trump nonetheless accorded the late Senator a state funeral and allowed Vice President Mike Pence to preside over it. Unless he has undisclosed personal interest in the funeral of his predecessor, President Hichilema could have done the same.

I do not understand what is preventing Hichilema from publicly committing that he will be nowhere near the body or the funeral, as requested by the deceased through his grieving family. He loses nothing by staying away. It is bizarre and illogical to force oneself onto a funeral program where the grieving family has explicitly told you that your presence is unwelcome. If the objective is to accord Lungu the honour of a state funeral, the president could have done so without making his presence a precondition for granting that honour to his predecessor. The state is a system, not an individual. When Lungu’s family made it explicitly clear that they did not want him at the funeral event, Hichilema should have delegated the responsibility of officiating at the funeral to another state official such as Vice-President Mutale Nalumango.

It was Hichilema’s failure to publicly commit that he would stay away from Lungu’s funeral if held in Zambia that forced the family to consider burying him in South Africa. Had the president not forced himself onto a funeral programme where the grieving family made it clear that he was unwelcome, Lungu would have long been buried in Lusaka. By insisting that the task of presiding over the funeral should only be carried out by him and nobody else, Hichilema demonstrated poor judgement. And when he did not get what he wanted, he cancelled the national morning and said, ‘let us move on’. That was unwise. So the failure to publicly pledge that he would stay away and instead delegate authority to the Vice-President, drawing lessons from the US experience, was yet another missed opportunity.

Fourth, when the family decided to bury Lungu in South Africa, Hichilema’s administration moved at the eleventh hour to block a funeral that was already underway. I should briefly deviate here to state that when I met Lungu two weeks before he died as part of my research into the book I am writing on why presidents fail, I told him that his downfall started the day he arrested Hichilema in April 2017 for alleged treason over what was essentially a traffic violation. That action made people who were not sympathetic to Hichilema’s politics warm up to him. This is because Zambians, at their core, hate abuse of power and injustice, especially the kind that pits a powerful Head of State against the weak or relatively defenceless citizen. I can equally say that a major turning point for Hichilema in relation to how many people view him was the day he dragged a grieving widow and her inconsolable children to court on the day they were burying their loved one, consequently stopping the burial. That was heartless and cruel.

Fifth, when the Pretoria High Court made a highly questionable ruling in favour of the government, a government minister and supporters of President Hichilema wildly celebrated saying akatumbi kaleisa. Others took to social media in the name of supporting Hichilema to say “It is coming home” and that “we have defeated Lungu even in death”. That was vile, cold, and disgusting. Hichilema could have easily and strongly condemned such extremely insensitive remarks and reined in on his supporters who are constantly vilifying a grieving family.

The President could have said ‘this is not right. That is not who we are as a people. If you are supporting me, you must show empathy to the grieving family because they are the ones who have lost more than anyone of us.’ Instead, the President kept quiet. Hichilema likes boasting that he spends time on scanning what people say on social media, so it’s not like he has not seen the attacks on the Lungus. He has. He probably just does not care and has failed to provide the required leadership in a time of sorrow.

When one reads the insults and attacks that the Lungu family have been subjected to on social media pages aligned to the ruling party and State House, it is easy to shed tears of empathy for the grieving family. These are people who have not even buried their loved one. Whatever we think about Lungu and how he led our country, we must never lose our humanity especially in moments of sorrow.  So, I would reiterate the point that the government and the president have handled this issue very poorly.

How have Zambians, of different political persuasions and in different parts of the country, reacted to this dispute? Has the funeral dispute exacerbated the country’s regional and political polarisation?

To be clear, the fault lines have always been there, but the dispute over Lungu’s burial place has exacerbated the country’s political and regional polarisation. Politically, and if one has carefully noticed, Lungu’s supporters and PF officials, particularly those based in Zambia, have been largely muted in their response to the undignified row between the family and the government perhaps because they live in fear of the repressive laws that Hichilema has either enacted or dusted off from colonial times to police free speech. It is therefore difficult to accurately read what the ordinary Zambian truly thinks about the issue because of this general climate of fear that the government has instilled in the population.

In contrast, officials and supporters of the governing party have been largely unrestrained and vocal in vilifying Lungu and his grieving family, even in death. This includes the Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha who recently stated that the government is prepared to bury Lungu without the involvement of his family if the family boycotted the funeral should the South African courts ultimately decide in favour of the Zambian state. Such reckless statements are culturally insensitive, undermine the government’s claims that its actions are motivated by the desire to accord Lungu what they call a dignified burial, indicate that political considerations rather than public interest are the key drivers at play, and heighten the already existing political divisions. There is no law that gives the government primary responsibility for burying a dead person except in the cases of unclaimed bodies, but even in such instances, there is a legal process that must be followed.

The dispute has also intensified regional divisions. Even before Lungu’s death, there existed sharp national divisions expressed on regional political lines, with many feeling that President Hichilema was targeting for prosecution, ill-treating, and marginalising people from regions that previously voted for Lungu such as Eastern, Luapula, Muchinga and Northern provinces. The fact that Lungu managed to hold on to his support base after losing power in 2021 meant that his death was always going to be a polarising moment. Historically, funerals of former presidents in Zambia have served as rare moments of national unity presided over by the incumbent president. The difference this time is that former president Lungu, at the time of his death, was back in active politics, had a turbulent relationship with his successor, and, partly because of that poor relationship, had made it clear that in the event of his death, he did not want his successor anywhere near his funeral.

Unfortunately, Hichilema seems to think that staying away from his predecessor’s funeral would diminish his personal standing, deny him the opportunity to show care for Lungu in death that he did not show in life, and allow his rivals to use the funeral for political campaigns ahead of the general election next year. Based on social media discussions, it become apparent that those who support the government’s position in the continuing row over Lungu’s burial are mainly Zambians from regions that have historically voted for Hichilema, with areas that supported Lungu largely expressing themselves through conspicuous silence.

This context, alongside the extraordinary desperation shown by the government to grab the body of Lungu from the grieving family, all in the name of giving him what they term a ‘dignified funeral’, shows how the extended dispute over his burial has reinforced pre-existing regional political divisions. How can a funeral be dignified if it excludes the mourning family?

The Attorney General said in June that a state funeral is required for presidents by law, citing a court case regarding the burial of former President Kenneth Kaunda. Do you believe the AG is incorrect in his assessment of the law?

The Attorney General’s assessment of the law is incorrect because the Kaunda case never resolved the question of who, between the family of the deceased and the state, holds the ultimate say on the funeral of a late former president. The genesis of the Kaunda case was the decision by the Lungu administration to bury former president Kenneth Kaunda at Embassy Park in Lusaka against his wishes, left to his family, that he be buried next to his late wife at their family farm when he dies. In response to this decision, the Kaunda family filed an urgent application in the High Court seeking leave to commence judicial review against the State over the specified decision. The family correctly argued that every decision that the State makes must be governed by law, and that since there is no law that obliges the government to bury the remains of a former president at Embassy Park, the decision must be declared null and void for want of authority. They also asked the court to order the State to release the remains of KK so that he could be buried in accordance with his wishes. The Kaunda family further requested the court to suspend the government’s decision to bury him until after hearing the arguments from both sides in the main matter.

Unfortunately, the High Court judge who was allocated the case, Wilfred Muma, sat on the urgent application until after the burial took place on 7 July. Following the burial, Muma ruled that that he was not persuaded that the family had a good case and thus refused to grant them permission to commence judicial review against the State, who did not even bother to appear before him. Although Muma gave the family leave to appeal against his decision, the family chose not to, as doing so would have been an academic exercise since the action they sought to prevent – the burial of Kaunda in a place that disregarded his wishes – had already taken place. Since the courts never examined the merits of the decision that the government had taken, this outcome meant that there was no judgment in the Kaunda case that could serve as a precedent.

All that the Kaunda family did was simply asking for permission to review the decision of the government so that the issue of who has ultimate responsibility over the body and funeral of a former president could be ventilated upon in court. A judicial review of the government’s decision would have resulted in it either being set aside or upheld. So, there is no case law on the point. There is also currently no written law that empowers the government to conduct the funeral of a former president. This explains why the Attorney General, even in court, has not cited any statute which gives the government the authority over a former president’s body and funeral.

What presently exists in Zambia is customary law, which is recognised by the country’s constitution. Article 7 of the constitution of Zambia defines the “Laws of Zambia” to include the Constitution itself; laws enacted by Parliament; statutory instruments; Zambian customary law which is consistent with the Constitution; and the laws and statutes which apply or extend to Zambia as prescribed.  This means that in the absence of a statute that empowers the state to conduct the funeral of a former president, the death and funeral of a former president is subject to customary law. Under customary law, the body of the deceased belongs to the family, and it is the family that has the ultimate responsibility to decide what to with it including where to bury.

What impact could this dispute have on the 2026 elections?

Whatever way the dispute is resolved, it will have a significant bearing on the 2026 elections. The governing party understands this point very well. A key reason behind the government’s court action in South Africa is to reduce the political costs of burying Lungu in exile. If the former president is interred in South Africa, the issue of Lungu’s burial location is likely to feature prominently in the political campaigns ahead of the country’s general election next year. Hichilema’s rivals could promise voters that they would exhume Lungu’s remains and bring them to Zambia for reburial if the person who made it impossible for the former president to be buried at home was voted out.

By initiating the court action, Hichilema is probably hoping that he could undermine the effectiveness of such political messages by claiming that he tried all that he could do to bring Lungu’s remains to Zambia and was only prevented by the South African courts. If the court action succeeds, Hichilema, whose administration violated Lungu’s right to travel abroad for medical treatment and the logical outcome is what has happened (death), can try to cleanse himself by showing care for him in death that he did not show when Lungu was alive.