Zambian Vice-President Guy Scott has been named acting head of state following the death of President Michael Sata, making him Africa\u2019s first white leader since South Africa\u2019s FW de Klerk.<\/p>\n
\u201cDr Scott will act as president of the Republic of Zambia until the country goes for a presidential by-election,\u201d said Defence and Justice Minister Edgar Lungu on Wednesday. This is likely to take place within 90 days.<\/p>\n
The announcement averts a possible constitutional crisis that could have seen Lungu and Scott vie for power.<\/p>\n
The battle for Zambia\u2019s top job was under way before long-ailing Sata died on Tuesday, but looked to become messier and more intense in the wake of his death.<\/p>\n
When Sata left the country for medical treatment in Britain last week, he named Lungu \u2013- a powerful figure in the ruling Patriotic Front (PF) \u2013 as acting president.<\/p>\n
Scott and Lungu belong to rival factions within the ruling party. But Scott (70) is not eligible to become president because of foreign parentage rules in Zambia\u2019s 1996 Constitution; his parents are from Scotland.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe government remains intact and so does the Patriotic Front as a party. We shall update on each decision made in this regard,\u201d said Lungu.<\/p>\n
The PF secretary general was among the favourites to take over as leader of the major copper-producing country of 15-million people.<\/p>\n
Lungu\u00a0leads one of two main camps that formed this year within the PF leadership when it became clear that Sata was in poor health, although this was denied\u00a0regularly\u00a0by the government.<\/p>\n
Lungu was likely to enjoy the backing of a majority Bemba-speaking group as the presidential candidate, despite it not being his ethnic language.<\/p>\n
Other candidates included Finance Minister Alexander Chikwanda, former defence minister Geoffrey Mwamba and Sata\u2019s son, Mulenga, who is the mayor of Lusaka and PF chairperson for Lusaka province.<\/p>\n
Chikwanda, a veteran finance minister, was given presidential powers at times when Sata was out of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Zambian Vice-President Guy Scott has been named acting head of state following the death of President Michael Sata, making him Africa\u2019s first white leader since South Africa\u2019s FW de Klerk. \u201cDr Scott will act as president of the Republic of Zambia until the country goes for a presidential by-election,\u201d said Defence and Justice Minister Edgar … Continue reading “Zambia gets a white president, a first in Africa”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2961,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,123],"tags":[4454,2167,1806],"class_list":["post-16657","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-world","tag-guy-scott","tag-president","tag-zambia"],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16657","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2961"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16658,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16657\/revisions\/16658"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/praag.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}