They had no plan to bury Lungu, they needed his body for campaign By Diggers Editor BARELY 24 hours after we observed that Mr Brian Mundubile sounds confident when he speaks but remains politically empty in substance, the NRPUP presidential candidate has given the country another example to consider. Addressing a rally in Chinsali, Mr […]

They had no plan to bury Lungu, they needed his body for campaign

By Diggers Editor

BARELY 24 hours after we observed that Mr Brian Mundubile sounds confident when he speaks but remains politically empty in substance, the NRPUP presidential candidate has given the country another example to consider. Addressing a rally in Chinsali, Mr Mundubile told citizens that if elected President after August 13, he and his running mate Mr Makebi Zulu would give late former president Edgar Chagwa Lungu a dignified burial. Wow! Just wow

The implication of Mr Mundubile’s statement is too serious to ignore. If the late president can only be given a dignified burial after NRPUP wins power, what does that say about the true motive behind the burial impasse? Was the resistance really about keeping President Hakainde Hichilema away from the funeral, as the public was made to believe? Or was the intention always to preserve the matter as a political weapon for the election campaign? From what Mr Mundubile has now said, it is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid the conclusion that the death of Mr Lungu is being used to harvest political sympathy.

Zambians will remember that just a week ago, the Lungu family, which is being represented by Mr Mundibile’s running mate Makebi Zulu, won the Supreme Court decision in South Africa, preventing the Zambian government from bringing the body and presiding over the funeral of Mr Lungu. Soon after that court decision, the government of Zambia issued a statement stating that it would not appeal the decision, and allowed the family to proceed and bury the late president in South Africa as they wished.

A few days ago, we heard a statement from Makebi Zulu who said that the Lungu family was still consulting on the final burial place for the late president. This was surprising because many would have thought the family had a plan in place on what to do if they won the case. When we thought that was surprising, the real shock now comes from Mr Mundubile who says the plan is to bury Lungu after they win elections in August.

This is cruel politics. Those who claim to have loved Mr Lungu are now agreeing to keep the late president in the mortuary because they think his unburied body can deliver votes. They are now calculating how much sympathy can be extracted from those that are still grieving the death of the former president. How heartless can one be. So, even the Lungu family is happy with this move? They want their late husband and father to stay in the fridge awaiting the outcome of elections?

Anyway, the painful truth is that those around this matter are clearly stranded. If they proceed to bury Mr Lungu in South Africa, the political benefit is limited. They cannot parade the body in Zambia to cultivate those votes they want. They cannot bring the body and turn the funeral into a national campaign platform.

They cannot use the burial procession to provoke public emotion across provinces. In that sense, they may feel that they would have “wasted” the funeral politically. But what kind of thinking is this? What kind of leadership looks at the remains of a former president and sees campaign capital?

Mr Mundubile must answer a simple question. If NRPUP loses the August election, which remains a very real possibility, what happens to the body? Will the burial be postponed again until 2031 when they try again? Will the late president remain unburied because the voters refused to give Mr Mundubile State House? This is the danger of careless talk. It exposes the thinking behind the campaign. There goes the manifesto of this Tonse group.

Perhaps Mr Mundubile should allow Mr Makebi Zulu to take the lead in addressing some of these sensitive matters. Our observation is that Mr Zulu, whatever one may think of his politics, appears more capable of reading situations better before speaking. He can be theatrical, yes, but he often constructs a more intelligent argument than his boss. Mr Mundubile, on the other hand, has developed a habit of speaking confidently into confusion. He says things that excite the crowd in the moment but collapse under basic scrutiny.

This is exactly why campaign crowds must not deceive the opposition. People can attend rallies for entertainment, curiosity or anger against government. But when the microphone is handed to a presidential candidate, citizens are looking for depth.

They are looking for solutions. They are listening for evidence that the person seeking to command the State understands the weight of leadership. On the Lungu burial, Mr Mundubile has failed that test.

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https://diggers.news/opinion/2026/07/01/they-had-no-plan-to-bury-lungu-they-needed-his-body-for-campaign/

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