AFRICA/ZAMBIA - New President Rupiah Banda takes office, under the same flag as his predecessor, who died in August

Lusaka (Agenzia Fides) – On November 2, in a ceremony that took place just hours following the announcement of the election results from October 30, the new President of Zambia, Rupiah Banda, took office.
The new Head of State promised to continue the policy maintained by his predecessor, Levy Mwanawasa, whose fatal heart-attack in August led to early elections. Immediately following the death of Mwanawasa, Banda (then Vice-President) assumed the Presidency ad interim, leading the country up to elections. Banda, former diplomat and leader of the Movement for Multipartisan Democracy (MDD), won with 40% of the votes, versus the 38% won by Michael Sasa, of the Patriotic Front.
The opposition has claimed fraud and will ask that the votes be re-counted. However, the observers of the African Union and the Southern African Development Community have referred to the elections as legal. There was only about a 45% turn-out, with a mere 1,800,000 voters at the polls.
Banda was elected for the MDD from among a dozen other candidates. He himself, however, is not considered a veteran member of the official party, but as an outsider without much support from within the party. However, he is considered a man with great diplomatic experience and, being a businessman as well, he seems to be the ideal person for continuing Mwanawasa’s economic policy. Mwanawasa had carried out a process of freeing-up of the economy, attracting foreign investors. Thanks to the reforms made by Mwanawasa, the Gross National Product has risen 5% per year for the past 6 years. The deceased President had also begun a program for diversifying the economy, which had been dominated by copper exports and in 2008, it is estimated that the amount of foreign investments not related to the mining sector will be 3 billion US dollars (in 2007, it was 1.4 billion).
Banda, who is scheduled to remain in office for the next 3 years of Mwanawasa’s term, has promised to fight poverty and corruption. (LM) (Agenzia Fides 3/11/2008)