Zambia Minister Slams Tonse for Using Late Lungu Video

Zambia's Information and Media Permanent Secretary Thabo Kawana called the Tonse Alliance's use of a video of the late former president Edgar Lungu at a campaign rally in Chitambo "shameful" and culturally wrong. During the rally, Makebi Zulu, running mate to presidential candidate Brian Mundubile, played a clip of Lungu urging voters to turn out to end their suffering.

Kawana said the footage exploited a dead man whose remains remain unburied a month after a South African court released them to the family. "It is shameful to use a message, videos of the former president, the late president Edgar Chagwa Lungu as a campaign tool," he said. "It is culturally wrong, it is spiritually wrong, it is morally wrong." He warned that political opponents would now respond to Lungu's message, and Tonse would then accuse them of disrespecting the dead.