Former Zambian President Edgar Lungu Dies At 68

Edgar Lungu Dies

Source: Africa Publicity

A former President of Zambia, Edgar Lungu, has died while under medical supervision in South Africa.

Lungu was 68. He passed away on Thursday, June 5, 2025, about six months after his attempt to return to politics and run for presidential election was thwarted by a court ruling that he could not run for office anymore.

Lungu served as the sixth President of Zambia from 2015 to 2021. He lost his re-election bid to long-time opposition leader and current President Hakainde Hichilema.

His political party, the opposition Patriotic Front, announced his death on Thursday in a statement on social media, saying he died on Thursday morning at a medical centre in Pretoria, the capital of South Africa.

Patriotic Front also posted a video on social of Lungu’s daughter Tasila Lungu, announcing his death. Tasila is a member of Parliament in Zambia.

Tasila says in the video “My father…had been under medical supervision in recent weeks. This condition was managed with dignity and privacy.”

The late Lungu suffered from a rare disorder that caused a narrowing of the food pipe for which he had been treated in South Africa in the past.

Shortly after assuming office in 2015, he fell sick and underwent a medical procedure in South Africa. The Zambian presidency at the time announced that the procedure was not available in Zambia.

Lungu was born on November 11, 1956 in the city of Ndola, in the Zambian copperbelt.

A lawyer by training, Lungu served as Justice and Defence Minister under former President Michael Sata before taking over the presidency when Sata died in 2015.