Police have confirmed that former Cabinet minister and opposition MP Mutotwe Kafwaya, 49, was shot dead during a security-force raid at NRPUP candidate Brian Mundubile’s residence, the day after the August 13 election.
A Fatal Raid Amid a Contested Count
Zambia Police confirmed that Kafwaya died during an operation at Mundubile’s home carried out by security forces, adding a fatal dimension to what was already a tense post-election security environment. The circumstances of the raid and the shooting have not been fully detailed publicly, and the incident has become a central point of contention between the opposition and government in the days since.
The death has fed into a broader set of allegations from Mundubile’s camp regarding the conduct of security forces around the election, including separate claims that soldiers entered some results-totalling centres and interfered with the count, claims that have not been independently verified and which government has not directly addressed.
A Widening Rights Concern
The Commonwealth has since called on Hichilema’s government to halt what it describes as arbitrary arrests, referencing the broader pattern of post-election detentions of opposition-linked figures alongside the Kafwaya case. State House, through Communication Specialist Clayson Hamasaka, has rejected characterisations of the government’s post-election operations as a campaign against the opposition, describing them instead as lawful investigations.
Sources: The Africa Report, Lusaka Times
