Wednesday 19 November 2014

Zambia To Hold Presidential By-election In January


Zambian deputy President Guy Scott in Harare, Zimbabwe
VENTURES AFRICA – Zambia will hold a presidential by-election on January 20 to find a successor for President Michael Sata, who died in office last month.
Acting President Guy Scott has called for calm and tolerance amid the rising tension accompanying the contest. “It is my prayer that peace continues during the campaigning and the presidential by-elections,” he told a news conference.
Guy Scott,a Zambian of Scottish heritage, is barred from standing in the by-election because of a Zambian law that prohibits the office of the president for citizens whose parents were born abroad. Scott’s parents were born in Scotland. However, following Sata’s death, Scott, as his vice, was sworn in as Acting President of Zambia. It made him Africa’s first white leader since the end of apartheid in South Africa 20 years ago.Questions about the stability of Africa’s second-biggest copper producer arose when Scott fired a presidential front-runner, Edgar Lungu, as the ruling PF party secretary-general on November 3, without offering any explanation for his decision. He reinstated him a day later after violent street protests. Supporters of Lungu want the PF’s central committee to pick the party’s candidate, while Scott says a party general conference should choose. No date as been set for the internal vote.

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