UPND SHOULD TELL ZAMBIANS WHY THE STATE NOW WANTS THE FINAL WORD OVER A FORMER PRESIDENT’S GRAVE
UPND SHOULD TELL ZAMBIANS WHY THE STATE NOW WANTS THE FINAL WORD OVER A FORMER PRESIDENT’S GRAVE
There are laws that are born out of careful policy planning.
And then there are laws that make people look back at a national controversy and ask:
What exactly happened here?
The Benefits of Former Presidents and Former Vice-Presidents Act, 2026, is now law. Parliament says its principal purpose is to provide retirement benefits for former Presidents and Vice-Presidents and to replace the 1993 legislation. It is officially Act No. 16 of 2026.
But buried inside this legislation is something far more politically sensitive than pensions, houses and retirement benefits.
It deals with where a former President is buried and how that funeral is conducted.
And suddenly, the timing becomes impossible to ignore.
WELCOME TO WHAT MANY ZAMBIANS MAY CALL THE LUNGU LAW.
Why?
Because Zambia had just experienced an extraordinary battle over the remains of former President Edgar Chagwa Lungu.
Lungu died in South Africa in June 2025. His family wanted him buried there, while the Zambian Government sought his repatriation for a state funeral.
The dispute went through the South African courts.
And in June 2026, South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal ruled that Lungu’s family had the right to determine his burial site, overturning an earlier ruling that had allowed the Zambian Government to repatriate his remains. Zambia’s Attorney General Mr Mulilo Kabesha SC. accepted the decision and said there would be no further appeal while busy drafting the new law with his government as chief legal advisor to the state.
Now look at what Zambia has done.
The new legislation provides a statutory framework for the burial of former Presidents and former Vice Presidents, including Government designation of the burial site and State funeral protocols.
That is a massive shift from leaving such questions to administrative practice and legal precedent.
And Parliament itself had already acknowledged the problem.
In November 2025, during debate on regulating funerals for heads of government, the National Assembly was told that Zambia had no single definitive statute governing such funerals and that the existing framework relied heavily on precedent, administrative discretion and Cabinet Office circulars.
The parliamentary debate also explicitly acknowledged that “laws are amended or changed to take care of the problems at hand.”
So let’s ask the uncomfortable question:
DID THE LUNGU FUNERAL BATTLE TEACH THE UPND GOVERNMENT ONE THING — NEVER AGAIN?
Never again should a former President’s family be in a position to determine where the remains of a former Head of State will be buried?
Never again should a Government have to fight a former President’s family in a foreign court over a coffin?
Never again should a sitting President face a situation where the family of a predecessor can say “No” to the State?
If that is the lesson, then perhaps this legislation is indeed the Edgar Lungu Law not its official name. But perhaps its political nickname.
AND HERE IS THE IRONY
When Edgar Lungu was alive, he was a political opponent of the UPND.
After his death, the battle did not end.
It moved from politics to the courtroom and eventually to the grave and elections. His son in law husband to Hon Tasila Lungu, Mr Patrick Mwansa is Charged with treason along a family lawyer/ spokesperson Makebi Zulu a main person who is supposed to see a proper send off to his former boss is also caged on same charges with President Brian Mundubile the leading presidential candidate in the just ended elections that they train militias without a training camp. Funny!
And now, after that extraordinary confrontation, Zambia has put a much clearer legal framework around the burial of former leaders.
That is not a small development.
Today it may concern Edgar Lungu’s legacy.
Tomorrow it could concern Hakainde Hichilema.
And the day after tomorrow, another President.
This is precisely why laws governing the final rights of former Presidents should not be treated as merely another piece of parliamentary housekeeping.
THE QUESTION IS NOT WHETHER FORMER PRESIDENTS DESERVE STATE HONOUR.
They do.
The question is:
How much power should the State have over the final wishes of a deceased former President and his or her family?
There must be a balance between the dignity of the office and the rights of the family.
There must also be safeguards against a future government using State funeral laws as another instrument in a political battle.
Because Governments change.
Presidents change.
Political parties change.
But the law remains.
UPND MUST ALSO REMEMBER THIS
A law written today will not belong to UPND forever.
The same law can one day be used by a Government that UPND does not control.
The same authority given to today’s Government will eventually be inherited by tomorrow’s Government.
And that is why every citizen — whether UPND, PF, Socialist Party, Democratic Party, opposition or politically neutral — should be asking:
Is this legislation protecting the dignity of former leaders, or is it giving the State too much control over their final resting place?
Let Parliament explain.
Let Government explain.
Let lawyers examine it.
Let Zambians debate it.
Because a grave may be closed, but questions about the law should never be buried with the dead.
THE LUNGU LAW?
Maybe that is not what Government wants it called.
Maybe Parliament will insist it is simply the Benefits of Former Presidents and Former Vice-Presidents Act, 2026.
Legally, that is its name.
Politically, however, history may remember something else:
THE LAW THAT CAME AFTER THE LUNGU GRAVE COULD NOT BE CLOSED.
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