Zambia's President Edgar Chagwa Lungu addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, New York, U.S.Zambia's Constitutional Court ruled on Friday that President Edgar Lungu can stand for re-election in August, throwing out a second opposition challenge to his eligibility on the basis of the constitutional two-term limit. The ruling comes as Zambia faces a multipronged economic crisis, after overleveraging its debt right before the brutal global COVID-19 shutdown. The crisis has triggered Africa's first pandemic-era sovereign default and driven the southern African country to seek emergency IMF help. Since this is technically his second term, the opposition had argued that he is no longer eligible to run -- an argument which the court had already rejected in 2018, but a second concurrent case was still awaiting a decision. read moreLast month, the country reached an agreement with the IMF on conditions for a bailout.

Source: Standard Digital June 12, 2021 09:21 UTC