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Leaders eulogize Zambia’s Mwanawasa, calling his death a ‘great loss for Africa’

Late Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa is pictured in October 2006 in Lusaka, Zambia. Mwanawasa died on Tuesday morning in a Paris hospital. PHOTO: AFP

World leaders eulogized Zambian president Levy Mwanawasa, who died on Tuesday at the age of 59 in a Paris hospital where the popular leader had been receiving treatment following a stroke earlier this year.

His death was announced by Zambian Vice President Rupiah Banda, who takes over as acting president, on television and radio.

“Fellow countrymen, with deep sorrow and grief I would like to inform the people of Zambia that our president, Dr Levy Patrick Mwanawasa, died this morning at 10:30 hours,” Banda said.

Mwanawasa’s passing came as little surprise after he suffered a second, debilitating stroke in late June in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where he had been about to attend a summit of African Union heads of state.

Zambians had been bracing for the news since Banda announced the burly lawyer had suffered a relapse at the Paris military hospital where he was being treated.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said his death was “a great loss for Africa and for democracy, which Mwanawasa defended his entire life.”

Despite Mwanawasa having been incapacitated for nearly two months, there has been no sign of a succession battle within his Movement for Multi-party Democracy, diplomatic sources in Lusaka said.

“There are quite a few people who could be contenders, but so far no-one has put their nose in the air,” one Western diplomat said, mentioning Banda, Finance Minister Ng’andu Magande and Local Government Minister Sylvia Masebo as possible contenders.

Muddying the waters is a controversial constitutional clause that says both parents of a candidate must be born in Zambia. This would exclude Banda and several other politicians that have origins in former southern Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe.

The clause is one of several being debated at a national constitutional conference that is only due to issue recommendations by 2010.

A South African foreign affairs spokesman on Tuesday refrained from comment on his death until official notification from Zambia.

South Africa was understandably cautious after President Thabo Mbeki mistakenly announced Mwanawasa’s death in Pretoria last month — even calling for a minute’s silence at a public event before realizing his blunder.

Mwanawasa had a history of poor health, suffering a first stroke while campaigning for re-election to a second five-year term as president in 2006. He won the election comfortably but his critics had questioned his fitness for office after that.

It was not clear whether he ever regained consciousness after his latest stroke. Zambia’s government had maintained a veil of secrecy over details of his condition.

Mwanawasa was Zambia’s third president since independence from Britain in 1964.

His prudent fiscal and monetary policies and his outspoken criticism of elderly Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, whose country he famously referred to as a “sinking Titanic,” made him a favorite with Western donors and investors.
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