Standoff: Lungu-Hichilema rivalry goes down to the grave

More than nine months after the death of former Zambian President Edgar Lungu, his body remains at a funeral home in South Africa following a bitter legal and political dispute between his family and the country’s government.

Lungu, who led Zambia from 2015 to 2021, died on June 5, 2025 in Pretoria after complications following surgery.

But instead of a burial befitting his stature, his death has been reduced to a supremacy battle between his family and government over where the former president should be buried.

His family insists the former Head of State must be interred privately in South Africa, while the Zambian government wants his remains returned home for a state funeral and burial at the official presidential burial site in Lusaka.

The dispute has escalated into a court battle in South Africa and Zambia, raising legal, political and cultural questions about who ultimately has the authority to decide the final resting place of a former president.

The Zambian government maintains that as a former president, Lungu belongs to the nation and must be buried with full state honours at the national mausoleum in Lusaka, where other former leaders are interred.

But Lungu’s family remains adamant that the former president expressed a clear wish that his longtime political rival and successor, Hakainde Hichilema, should not attend his funeral.

Since a state funeral would traditionally be presided over by the sitting president, the family has rejected the idea of repatriating his remains.

Instead, they have been attempting to organise a private burial in South Africa, arguing that would honour Lungu’s final wishes.

In June last year, through the Attorney General’s office, Zambia filed an urgent application seeking an interdict to stop the funeral until the dispute over the burial place could be resolved.

The Pretoria High Court halted the burial just hours before the ceremony was due to take place.

In its ruling, the court ordered that the funeral should not proceed until the legal dispute over the final resting place of the former president is determined.

“By agreement by the parties, order is made with the following terms: the two respondents undertake not to proceed with the funeral and burial of the late president pending the finalisation of the application,” the court ruled.

Personal wishes

The decision effectively froze the burial process, leaving the body in storage while the legal battle continued.

In August 2025, the court ruled in favour of the Zambian government, stating that the former president’s remains should be handed over for repatriation and burial in Zambia.

“A former president’s personal wishes or the wishes of his family cannot outweigh the right of the state to honour that individual with a state funeral,” the judge ruled.

However, Lungu’s family quickly appealed the ruling, prolonging the dispute and preventing the immediate transfer of the body.

Efforts to resolve the dispute outside the courts have also failed. The Southern African regional bloc Southern African Development Community (SADC) attempted to mediate between the two sides.

Former Malawian president Bakili Muluzi was later appointed as a high-profile mediator to try to break the impasse.

But after months of negotiations, Muluzi withdrew from the process in November 2025, citing lack of progress in reconciling the positions of the family and the government. 

But beneath the legal dispute lies a long-running political feud between Lungu and Hichilema.

The two men were rivals for years in Zambia’s highly competitive politics. Lungu narrowly defeated Hichilema in the 2015 presidential election and again in 2016.

During Lungu’s presidency, Hichilema was even jailed for four months in 2017 on treason charges after his motorcade allegedly failed to give way to the presidential convoy.

The arrest drew widespread criticism from international human rights groups.

But in the 2021 elections, Hichilema defeated Lungu and became president, marking a major political shift in Zambia.

Relations between the two camps remained tense even after Lungu left office.

The former president later accused the government of restricting his movements and targeting his family with corruption investigations.

Some of Lungu’s relatives were arrested on fraud and money-laundering charges, deepening mistrust between the family and the government.

The irony of the current dispute has not been lost on observers.

When Zambia’s founding president Kenneth Kaunda died in June 2021, his family also wanted a private burial. They had hoped to bury him at his farm next to his wife.

But Lungu, who was president at the time, insisted that Kaunda be buried at the official presidential burial site in Lusaka, known as Embassy Park.

Political issue

The government argued that Kaunda, as the nation’s founding father, belonged to the country and deserved a state burial.

The dispute went to court, and the High Court ruled in favour of the government. Kaunda was eventually buried at Embassy Park with full state honours despite his family’s objections.

Today, many observers say Lungu’s family is facing the same legal principle that he enforced during his presidency.

Beyond politics and law, the dispute has also touched on deeply held cultural beliefs. In many African societies, the failure to bury the dead promptly is considered taboo and spiritually troubling.

Religious leaders and scholars in Zambia say the prolonged delay has unsettled many citizens.

Bishop Anthony Kaluba of the Life of Christ congregation in Lusaka described the dispute as more than just a political issue.

“It has shifted from the physical, it has shifted from politics, and it is now a spiritual battle,” he said.

Some supporters of Hichilema believe a state funeral would be an act of reconciliation and national unity.

But others sympathize with the family’s position, noting that in many African traditions people often exclude enemies from funeral ceremonies.

Professor Chammah Kaunda, a Zambian scholar of African Pentecostal theology, said final words spoken before death are often taken seriously in African cultures.

“Elders facing death can impose curses or give blessings, and these words can acquire a life of their own,” he said. 

In Lusaka, a grave prepared for Lungu at the presidential burial site remains empty, a stark symbol of the unresolved dispute.

Additional reporting by agencies.