Muluzi Withdraws from Lungu Burial Mediation as Family Continues to Defy Court Orders

Former Malawian President Dr. Bakili Muluzi has formally withdrawn from mediation efforts over the burial of Zambia's late Sixth President Edgar Chagwa Lungu, marking the collapse of yet another attempt to resolve a dispute that has now dragged on for five months since the former leader's death on 5 June 2025.

Dr. Muluzi's announcement on Tuesday brings to an end an intensive mediation process that has seen multiple regional leaders, religious figures, and international statesmen attempt to broker a resolution between the Zambian government and the Lungu family – a family that has persistently refused to comply with court rulings ordering the repatriation of the late President's remains to Zambia.

The withdrawal represents a damning indictment of the Lungu family's intransigence. Despite clear rulings from South African courts – including the Pretoria High Court in August, a failed appeal in September, and a Constitutional Court dismissal in late August – the family has continued to obstruct the repatriation process, keeping the former President's body at Two Mountains funeral parlour in South Africa.

"It has now become necessary to withdraw from the mediation process and formally return the matter to the family, the Zambian people, the Zambian Government, and other processes," Dr. Muluzi stated, acknowledging that "the complexity of certain matters prevented the attainment of a final, unified resolution."

A SAGA OF OBSTRUCTION AND DEFIANCE

The dispute began almost immediately after President Lungu's death in a Johannesburg hospital on 5 June. What should have been a straightforward matter of according a former head of state appropriate national honours has instead become a prolonged legal and diplomatic battle, entirely driven by the family's refusal to accept Zambian law and protocol.

The Zambian government had prepared a state funeral and a grave at Embassy Park in Lusaka, the official burial site for all Zambian presidents. However, the Lungu family, led by spokesperson Makebi Zulu, has repeatedly rejected these arrangements, citing the late President's alleged wishes to exclude current President Hakainde Hichilema from his funeral.

On 25 June – just three weeks after President Lungu's death – the Zambian government was forced to obtain an emergency court order to halt a private burial the family had arranged in Johannesburg. The Pretoria High Court intervened mere hours before the ceremony was due to begin, forcing mourners who had already arrived at the church to wait while the matter was argued in court.

That initial hearing resulted in an agreement that no burial would take place until the courts made a final determination. Yet rather than accept the inevitable, the Lungu family has spent the subsequent months launching appeal after appeal, each one dismissed by South African courts.

On 8 August, the Pretoria High Court delivered a comprehensive ruling ordering that President Lungu's body be "immediately" handed over to Zambian government representatives for repatriation. Judge Aubrey Ledwaba was unequivocal: "A former president's personal wishes or the wishes of his family cannot outweigh the right of the state to honour that individual with a state funeral."

The family appealed. On 16 September, the same court dismissed their application for leave to appeal, ruling that there were "no reasonable prospects of success" in a higher court. Still, the family persisted.

By late August, even South Africa's Constitutional Court had weighed in, dismissing the family's final appeal and effectively closing all legal avenues for the family to prevent repatriation.

FIVE MONTHS OF DELAY

Yet here we are in mid-November – five months after President Lungu's passing – and his body remains in South Africa, held hostage by a family more interested in political point-scoring than in according their loved one a dignified burial.

The mediation process that has now collapsed saw the involvement of some of Southern Africa's most respected figures. Beyond Dr. Muluzi, two senior Zambian church leaders – Archbishop Dr. Alick Banda of the Lusaka Archdiocese and Bishop Professor Joshua H.K. Banda of the Pentecostal Assemblies of God Zambia – were appointed as co-mediators in September. Even former Mozambican First Lady Graça Machel reached out personally to offer support to Mrs. Esther Lungu.

All of these efforts have been in vain, stymied by the family's refusal to accept what the courts have repeatedly confirmed: that Zambian law requires former presidents to be buried in Zambia with full state honours, regardless of personal or family preferences.

Attorney General Mulilo Kabesha has been patient and measured throughout this ordeal, expressing the government's willingness to work with the family while maintaining that national protocol and the law must be respected. "Those who want to be presidents of countries must know that they are not only restricted to their immediate families, but they belong to the nation," Mr. Kabesha observed after the August court ruling.

A NATION DENIED CLOSURE

The real victims of this prolonged saga are the Zambian people, who have been denied the opportunity to properly mourn and pay their respects to a man who led their country for six years. While political differences are inevitable in a democracy, the Lungu family's actions have prevented national healing and closure.

The family's spokesperson, Makebi Zulu, has repeatedly claimed that the government's insistence on a state funeral is merely "political grandstanding." But it is the family that has turned this into a political spectacle, dragging the nation through month after month of legal battles and failed mediations.

President Lungu served Zambia as its Sixth President from 2015 to 2021. Whatever one's political views, he deserves to be laid to rest with the dignity befitting his office, surrounded by the people he led. The Lungu family's continued obstruction of this process five months after his death – and despite every court ruling going against them – is not honouring his memory. It is dishonoring it.

With Dr. Muluzi's withdrawal, the mediation process has formally ended. The question now is how much longer the Lungu family will continue to defy the courts and deny closure to a nation in mourning.