WHEN PRESIDENTS DIE: THE DARK PATTERN HANGING OVER ZAMBIA’S STATE HOUSE

WHEN PRESIDENTS DIE: THE DARK PATTERN HANGING OVER ZAMBIA’S STATE HOUSE

By Brian Matambo | Sandton, South Africa

There is no clear political or social connection between the deaths of Zambia’s presidents and the outcome of the elections that follow. Yet the pattern stands. Haunting. Undeniable.

Each time a sitting or former president has died, the man in State House has gone on to lose the next election. The deaths themselves do not cause the defeat. But they seem to echo like a dark prophecy. A spiritual warning. A curtain call on an era that is quietly closing.

The pattern begins in 2008 when President Levy Mwanawasa died on 19 August while still in office. His vice president, Rupiah Banda, assumed the role of acting president and went on to contest the election later that year, which he won.

However, during Banda’s presidency, former President Frederick Chiluba died on 18 June 2011.

That same year, Banda faced the electorate again and was defeated in the general election.

Then came  Michael Sata, who died on 28 October 2014, also while serving as president. Acting president Guy Scott took over but did not contest.

The PF barely held onto power through Edgar Lungu,who won the 2015 by-election.

Fast forward to 2021. Founding President Kenneth Kaunda died on 17 June. He was Zambia’s first president and remained a towering symbol of peace and legacy. His death was followed just two months later by the defeat of then-president Edgar Lungu in the general election.

Shortly after that transition, Rupiah Banda,himself a former head of state, passed away on 11 March 2022,during Hakainde Hichilema’s presidency. This made Hichilema the sitting president at the time of yet another former leader’s death, pushing him deeper into a cycle that has historically ended in electoral defeat.

Now, in 2025, Zambia finds itself once again at the edge of the same cliff. Former President Edgar Lungu has died on June 5,and Hakainde Hichilema is the man in State House. The question writing itself across the national conscience is simple. Will this pattern repeat itself?

There is no constitutional theory to explain it. No political science textbook will link the passing of a president to electoral defeat. But this is Africa. Where symbolism speaks louder than speeches. Where ancestral patterns whisper louder than polls. Where the death of a leader signals more than grief. It signals transition. A spiritual shift. A cleansing.

Perhaps this is why the Lungu burial has triggered such strange responses. The legal battles. The attempts to control the funeral. The calls to authenticate the body. The court cases in foreign lands. All this, in the name of final rites? Or is it something deeper? Something fearful? Something desperate?

President Hichilema must be reminded. History cannot be buried with a body. What the nation feels is not just political discomfort. It is spiritual unease. And no amount of legal posturing or propaganda will erase what is already being whispered in villages, churches, and compounds. The last time this happened, the man in power did not return. Nor the time before that. Nor the time before that.

The cycle does not explain why they fall. But it warns that they do.

Brian Matambo
Political Consultant & Media Strategist | Sandton, South Africa