14
to nothing more than inefficiency, corruption, and
disastrous economic decline.
In 1990 a clearly failing economy, twinned with po-
litical frustrations, led to serious food riots and an
attempted military coup d’état that had the support
of many. Opposition to the regime became so deep
and widespread, along with the urgency of the de-
mand for change that Kaunda had to concede some
of his power and offer multi-party elections.
Kaunda remained in office for 27 years. While dur-
ing his early years, great strides were made in the
areas of education, healthcare and infrastructure,
his attempts to "decolonize" the economy through
nationalization of industries and operations pro-
duced only inefficiency, corruption, and a subse-
quent disastrous economic decline. Kaunda’s one
party participatory democracy, which gave UNIP
sole power, soon deteriorated into an autocracy
maintained by a police state.
In 1990, a failing economy with political frustrations
led to serious food riots and an attempted military
coup d’état that had the support of many. Opposition
to the regime became so deep and widespread that
Kaunda was forced to concede some of his power
and offer multi-party elections.
Democracy
The one-party state was soon abolished and gave
way to free elections held in October 1991. The
newly formed Movement for Multi-party Democracy
(MMD), a broad coalition of different interest groups,
handily defeated Kaunda and UNIP receiving an
overwhelming 80% of the vote.
A trade unionist by the name of Frederick Chiluba,
who had been locked up by Kaunda, rose to promi-
nence within the MMD to become Zambia’s second
President. He promised democratic, transparent,
and accountable governance, but he inherited an
empty treasury, a foreign debt of over seven billion
US dollars, and a country in a much worse state
than it had been prior to independence.
Upon assuming the Presidency, Chiluba embarked
on an economic reform program. The program
abolished foreign exchange controls, passed new
investment laws, helped set up a stock exchange,
the Lusaka Stock Exchange (LuSE), and embarked
on a privatization program named the best on the
continent by the World Bank. This led to Zambia be-
coming an attractive destination for donor aid and
private sector investment. The surge in investor
confidence in Zambia attracted a growing number
of investors.
In the 1990s, however, relations among donors and
investors began to cool amid negative perceptions of
the constitutional changes that came to pass, which
prevented former president Kenneth Kaunda from
standing as a presidential candidate ahead of the
November 1996 National elections. UNIP and other
opposition parties subsequently boycotted the elec-
tions in 1996 as they were collectively on the receiv-
ing end of much harassment by the MMD. The elec-
tion resulted in another Chiluba Presidency.
In 2001 Chiluba announced that he was going to
amend the constitution to allow him to stand for a
third term in office. The public was outraged at such
undemocratic actions amid increasing allegations of
corruption. In the end, Chiluba finally agreed to step
down and appointed Levy Mwanawasa as his suc-
cessor. After a close election race in December 2001
between Levy Mwanawasa of the MMD and Ander-
son Mazoka of the United Party for National Devel-
opment (UPNDDP), Mwanawasa won with a small
margin and was sworn in as President. Although the
results were disputed, the Supreme Court eventu-
ally ruled in favor of President Mwanawasa and the
MMD. Mwanawasa ran for a second term in 2006,
ending in the MMD remaining in power.
Important steps taken under President Mwanawa-
sa’s “New Deal Administration” included the launch-
ing of a far-reaching anti-corruption campaign in
2002, as well as a comprehensive Constitutional re-
view process in 2005 set to strengthen government’s
political accountability.
Levy Mwanawasa served as President of Zambia
from January 2002 until his untimely death in Paris,
France in August 2008 after suffering a stroke. Mwa-
nawasa’s VicePresident, Rupiah Banda, became
acting President and, subsequently the Presidential
candidate for the MMD who narrowly won the Octo-
ber 2008 presidential election.
DEMOGRAPHICS
The population of Zambia is made up of more than
70 Bantu-speaking ethnic groups. The groups are
quite small, and only two are large enough to consti-
tute at least 10% of the population.
Most Zambians are subsistence farmers; however,
General Information
