Zambia’s presidential hostility that even death cannot end

Personal became very political in Zambia.

The mourning and the buildup of the funeral are never easy, but they throw out the results of the long-standing hostility between the two leading politicians of the country’s President Hakand Hicilym and his predecessor Edgar Lung-I have an explosive mix.

It was beautiful that Lung’s family said that one of his dying wishes was that Hickel should not go anywhere near his body.

The government’s plans to honor the former head of state, created an unpleasant gap in the line and left the people who wondered how everything became ill.

On Sunday, a state funeral for the age of 68, which ruled for six years since 2015, was to see. But there will be no calling dignitaries and the venue-Vytrovic Conference Center in the heart of the capital, Lusaka will be empty.

Ahead was already hint of possible problems immediately after Lung’s death on June 5, in Video Expression that is shared by his daughter on Facebook.

Dressed in a thick black jacket and holding back tears, Tasila Lung said her father died in a hospital in South Africa, where he was treated with “dignity and privacy.”

She collected a one-minute announcement saying that “at this point, we have caused the spirit of” one Zambia, one nation “eternal faith that ruled President Lung’s service to our country.”

To emphasize the need for unity at a time when the tradition suggested that the nation should naturally unite, it was a hint that everything was not so good.

And there was another question: where was the President’s proclamation?

Ms. Lung’s statement confirmed rumors about the social media about his father’s death, the reports of condolences have already gone, including from the President of Kenya, but there was no word from Hicilem.

While independent outlets reported the news, ZNBC’s national television company was silent.

Then, three hours after the post of daughter, The head of state Zambia shared his thoughts In a text message on Facebook. He turned to unity, asking people “to support the values ​​of peace, dignity and cohesion that define us as Zambians.”

Information Minister Cornelius Mwieth rejected the delay in Hiczilem, reflecting on death. He told the BBC that, based on a precedent, this is not the main role of the state, which for the first time announced the passage of the predecessor.

However, Lung’s supporters felt that the Hicielem’s message about “Together” was talking.

Hicilya finally became president in his sixth attempt after loudly beaten Lung in the 2021 elections. It was their third election match, but hostility went beyond the rivalry.

The key to understanding this was more than 100 days that Hicielem, the opposition leader at the time, spent in detention in 2017, waiting for a trial on charges of treason.

He was accused of threatening the life of President Lung at that time after his corporation allegedly refused to concede the place to carry the head of state.

The allegations were dropped only after the Commonwealth Secretary General.

Later in the same year, BBC that he was in solitary confidence during the first eight days in humiliation and inhuman conditions “without electricity, without water, without a toilet”. He personally accused Lung of imprisonment.

It was only one of 17 cases where Hicilem was arrested. Supporters of his United Party of National Development were also subjected to supporters of the ruling patriotic front (PF).

The 2021 elections could hold the line under the things.

Lung, which was dismissed by almost a million votes when an electorate that is tired of corruption accusations and concerned with obvious anti -democratic behavior, entered the political pension.

But when the disappointment of the president of Hicilya grew out of long economic difficulties, Lung felt the opportunity and announced in October 2023, which was returning to the front line.

Shortly thereafter, Lung’s announcement was deprived of state payments and privileges when he returned to an active policy.

This decision was made with the former president and his family.

Lung also complained about pursuing police. At one point last year he said that “almost under house arrest.”

In 2023, police warned him from a jog in public, describing his weekly training as “political activity”.

“I can’t move from my home without calling the police and calls me home,” Lung said to the BBC in May 2024.

In this interviewHe also claimed that he had been banned from attending a conference abroad and going abroad for medical treatment.

The Information Minister severely denied that if he had a ban on the trip and described the idea that his movement was limited in Zambia as “fiction and imagination of the fantasy of politically charged thinking.”

Mviet added that, despite the treatment of Hicilya, when he was in opposition, he decided not to do the same with Lung.

There are also accusations that the president’s anti -corruption campaign was sent to those close to the former PF government, including the Lung family.

His widow, which continues the investigation, was taken to court and lost property. Some of his children, including Tasil, also encountered similar treatment – all of them deny the violations.

Then at the end of last year, the Constitutional Court again banned him to run for the president, deciding that he had already fulfilled a maximum of two terms allowed by law.

The former head of state became angry with how he felt that he had been treated.

“There was no love between the two men and (Lung) the opinion that” I don’t want people to pretend to be in my death that they care about me when in fact, “said the lawyer of the Makeb Zulu family.

In the end, Lung managed to reach South Africa in January, but Mr. Zulu said that after a number of trials he was told that if he had been checking earlier, treatment would have had a big chance of success.

It was not revealed what he suffers from.

In part, in the light of this Lung said that “the current president would not want to attend his funeral.”

The government rejected the idea that Lung stopped to look at his doctors in South Africa.

After his death, the family wanted to be responsible for the funeral agreements, but Zambia’s authorities sought to take control.

Despite the bad feeling, last weekend it looked the way a compromise was reached and the plans were made for a state burial.

But the relationship again crashed when the family stated that the government had resumed the agreement after the issue of the program showing the greater involvement of the hickel, which was planned.

In a message on ThursdayThe President thanked Zambians for “sustainability, patience, solidarity and tranquility at this time”, but after “everything is possible to attract the family … We reached the point when we need to make the exact decision.”

With this burial in Zambia was stopped, and the national mourning period was stopped sharply.

Now the funeral should take place in South Africa, and it is unlikely that Hicielem will be present.

Zambians hoped for both Hickel and Lung to bury their differences, but this death and subsequent events denied people the closure and reconciliation, which they desperately wanted to see between them.

These differences also denied many millions of Zambians to mourn and set the last respect to the person who once ruled them.