Zambia

Official mourning period for late president extended

Article published on the 2008-08-22 Latest update 2008-08-22 12:02 TU

Zambien Levy Mwanawasa alongside the presidents of Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa at SADC summit 2007
(Photo: AFP)

The Zambian cabinet has made arrangements for the late President Levy Mwanawasa's funeral which they plan to hold on 3 September. They have extended the mourning period from seven to 21 days.

Levy Mawanawasa died after undergoing emergency surgery on Tuesday after a complication resulting from his second stroke in two years.

A special cabinet meeting has decided to extend the mourning period for the late president because of the logistical requirements for returning his remains from Paris to the Zambian capital, Lusaka. The burial will now also coincide with what would have been Mwanawasa's 60th birthday in September.

The president's body is due to be flown back to Lusaka on Sunday and will lie in state in different provincial cities next week. Details on the actual burial site have not been disclosed.

Mwanawasa, who had battled poor health for many years, died after suffering his second stroke in a little over two years in Egypt at the end of June.

His health had been poor for some time and he had struggled with prostate cancer, hypertension, diabetes as well as head injuries sustained in a road accident in 1993 when he was deputy president.

Mwanawasa became Zambia's third president in 2002, after an election that many believed had been rigged for him by his predecessor Frederick Chiluba.

A former solicitor-general under independence leader Kenneth Kaunda, he defected from the ruling party to co-found his own movement in 1991.

He also turned against Chiluba, instigating his arrest on charges of corruption. Mwanawasa had also been a staunch critic of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, and was critical of other Southern African leaders for their alleged silence over events in the neighbouring country.

Mwanawasa's outspoken foreign policy made him friends in the West.

However despite support from the donor countries, in one of his recent comments, he admitted that he'd failed to alleviate poverty sufficiently in his own country, as a majority of Zambians still live below the poverty line.