Zambia’s Edgar Lungu seeks re-election for yet another term

LUSAKA, Zambia

Zambian President Edgar Lungu filed his nomination Monday seeking re-election after a court petition to block him failed.

His critics still argued he was not eligible to contest the election as that would amount to a “third term.”

The country’s Constitutional Court earlier ruled that he was eligible to run for president again.

Critics had argued that he became head of state following the death of President Michael Sata in the middle of his term in office.

President Sata died in 2014 after three years in power, which necessitated an election in which Lungu was voted in in 2015.

President Lungu has picked a 70-year-old university professor of microbiology, Nkandu Luo, as his running mate.

The Zambian leader later told journalists that he was happy over his choice of his running mate, saying he has chosen her because she was politically strong and professionally accomplished.

He said he was not worried about people who may have reservations about his choice of a running mate and called for peaceful campaigns.

Professor Nkandu Luo 

"After great reflections and prayerful thought, I have picked Professor Nkandu Luo as my running mate in the August 12 elections. I have no doubt that we are going to make a great team that will not only give our party the electoral victory, but, ultimately, the progress we desire for our great nation," he said.

Prof Luo, a northerner, started as a junior minister soon after Zambia reverted to multiparty politics in 1991 and rose through ranks. She, however, left the Movement for Multiparty Democracy to join the current governing party Patriotic Front in mid-2000.

Incumbent Vice President Inonge Wina, 80, told reporters she had excused herself from being a running mate on account of her age and had asked the president not to consider her for the job.

Zambia goes to the polls on August 12, 2021.