Zambia’s former President , Edgar Lungu is dead.
According to a Patriotic Front statement, the former president died at the age of 68.
According to the statement, Lungu was receiving specialised medical care in South Africa for an unidentified disease before his death.
Lungu led Zambia for six years beginning in 2015, losing the 2021 election to current President Hakainde Hichilema by a significant margin.
In a short video, Lungu’s daughter Tasila said that the former head of state, who had been “under medical supervision in recent weeks”, died at a clinic in South Africa’s capital, Pretoria, at 06:00 (04:00 GMT) on Thursday.
Lungu first became president in January 2015 after winning a special presidential election triggered by the death of Michael Sata.
After completing Sata’s term, he won a further five years in power in 2016 taking just over 50% of the votes.
But after six years at the helm, Lungu was blamed for a struggling economy and high unemployment. He lost in 2021 by close to a million votes with Hichilema tapping into widespread dissatisfaction among the electorate.
Following his defeat, he took a break from politics, but eventually returned to the fray.
He said he was retiring from politics in the aftermath of the vote, but he returned to frontline politics in 2023 as his successor’s popularity waned.
