Former Zambian President Edgar Lungu died on Thursday at the age of 68, six months after an attempted return to politics was thwarted by a court ruling that he could not run for office again.
Lungu was the sixth president of the Southern African nation and held office from 2015 to 2021, when he lost an election to long-time opposition leader and current President Hakainde Hichilema.
He was praised during his tenure for a massive road-building programme, but also ran Zambia’s finances deeply into the red. The country defaulted on its international debt in 2020, precipitating his election loss.
Lungu died on Thursday morning at a medical centre in South Africa’s capital Pretoria, where he had been receiving specialized treatment, his political party, the Patriotic Front, said in a statement on social media.
The party also posted a video on social media of Lungu’s daughter Tasila Lungu, a member of Zambia’s parliament, announcing his death.
“My father… had been under medical supervision in recent weeks. This condition was managed with dignity and privacy,” she said.
Lungu suffered from a rare disorder that caused a narrowing of the food pipe, for which he had been treated in South Africa before. Shortly after he took office in 2015 he fell ill and underwent a procedure in South Africa which the presidency said at the time was not available in Zambia.
Source: Reuters
