Zambia

Landlocked country in southern central Africa, bounded north by the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) and Tanzania, east by Malawi, south by Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia, and west by Angola.

Government

Zambia is an independent republic within the Commonwealth. The 1991 multiparty constitution provides for a directly-elected president as head of state and government and a single-chamber national assembly. Both are elected for five-year terms, with the presidency limited to two terms. The national assembly comprises 150 elected members and up to eight presidentially appointed members. The president governs with an appointed cabinet. The country has nine provinces, each administered by a deputy minister.

History

Waves of Bantu-speaking immigrants entered Zambia from the 12th century and migrants from southern Congo and northern Angola from the 18th century. The country was visited by the Portuguese in the late 18th century and by Scottish explorer David Livingstone in the 1850s. Cecil Rhodes obtained from local chiefs a mineral rights concession for Britain in 1888, and Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) fell under the British sphere of influence. As Northern Rhodesia it became a British protectorate in 1924, together with the former kingdom of Barotseland (now Western Province), taken under British protection at the request of its ruler in 1890. Mining began in the Copperbelt in 1934.

Independent republic

From 1953 the country, with Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and Nyasaland (now Malawi), was part of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, dissolved in 1963. Northern Rhodesia became the independent Republic of Zambia in 1964, within the Commonwealth, with Dr Kenneth Kaunda, leader of the United National Independence Party (UNIP), as its first president. Between 1964 and 1972, when it was declared a one-party state, Zambia was troubled with frequent outbreaks of violence because of disputes within the governing party and conflicts among the country's more than 70 tribes. Despite its mineral wealth, Zambia faced difficulties. It relied heavily on foreign expertise and the support it gave to movements fighting colonial or white-dominated rule in Southern Rhodesia and South Africa led to problems with international transport and power supply.

Relations with Rhodesia

Zambia was economically dependent on neighbouring white-ruled Rhodesia but tolerated liberation groups operating on the border, and relations between the two countries deteriorated. The border was closed in 1973, and in 1976 Kaunda declared his support for the Patriotic Front, led by Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, which was fighting the white regime in Rhodesia, culminating in independence and the overthrow of white rule in 1979. With Chinese assistance, a railway was built from Zambia to the Tanzanian port of Dar es Salaam, along with a pipeline to Tanzania. Civil war in Angola and Mozambique in the late 1970s led to an influx of refugees and further transportation problems, with the closure of the Benguela railway which went west through Angola. Also, from the mid 1970s the price of Zambia's main export, copper, fell sharply worldwide and Zambia faced problems servicing its foreign debt. Despite his imposition of strict economic policies, Kaunda was re-elected in 1988, unopposed, for a sixth consecutive term.

End of Kaunda presidency

In December 1990, faced with the growing strength of the opposition Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) and following riots in the capital and an attempted coup, President Kaunda announced the introduction of a multiparty system from October 1991. The MMD, which included trade union leaders and UNIP defectors, registered as a political party and formed a National Democratic Alliance (NADA). The MMD won a landslide victory in the October 2001 elections. Its candidate, Frederick Chiluba, was elected president, with 81% of the vote, defeating Kaunda after 27 years in power, and the MMD won 131 of the 150 national assembly seats.

Drought

During 1991–92 southern Africa experienced its worst drought of the 20th century and as a result Zambia suffered dire food and water shortages (1992–93). In 1993 a state of emergency was declared in response to reports of a planned anti-government coup.

MMD in power

The MMD's commitment to political reform waned after it came to power and in 1993 a state of emergency was declared in response to reports of a planned antigovernment coup. In May 1996, President Chiluba pushed through a controversial constitutional amendment which set a retroactive two-term limit on presidents and required future presidential candidates to be second-generation Zambians. This amendment eliminated Kaunda and prominent opposition leaders from the 1996 presidential election which was won by Chiluba, and the UNIP boycotted the concurrent parliamentary elections. Kaunda was jailed in late December 1997 after returning to his country for the first time since an attempted coup. He was soon released and placed under house arrest and in June 1998 charges against him were dropped.

In 2001 Chiluba's supporters sought to change the constitution to allow him to run for a third term but, faced with strong opposition from the vice-president and other ministers, who were expelled from the MMD, Chiluba announced that he would not be a candidate. Levy Mwanawasa, Chiluba's chosen successor, was elected president in December 2001 and sworn in on 2 January 2002, despite opposition allegations of electoral fraud. The MMD polled poorly in the parliamentary elections and only a retained a slim majority, after by-elections. President Mwanawasa sought to root out corruption, which had become a growing problem under the previous government.

Zambia (redirected from Zambians)