Zambia Update

Seeing as Zambian news is probably not coming from the mouth of Peter Mansbridge any time soon here are my top 5 Zambian news stories of 2006-7.

1. The Zambian election: President Mwanawasa was re-elected for a second (and final) five year term. The Patriotic Front and its aggressive leader, Michael Sata, cry foul and continue to exchange insults with the ruling party (the MMD). The two are bitter rivals with a long history of hate between them so the war of words goes back and forth with some regularity.

2. President Chiluba guilty of corruption. A British court found Chiluba guilty in a civil case regarding approximately $40 million of misappropriated money. Chiluba, who clings to an illness as an excuse to avoid court dates, will likely soon face a long awaited criminal trial in Zambia. Chiluba left office in 2001 (after Zambians overwhelmingly opposed the idea of him changing the constitution to allow himself to hold on to power) and his handpicked successor, Mwanawasa, has since been pursuing corruption charges against him. In another war of words, Chiluba and Zambia's first president, Kenneth Kaunda, who also hate each other, bicker regularly through the media as well.

3. Zambia loses to a vulture fund. Zambia recently received significant debt relief but these benefits may all be for not after they lost in court to a "vulture fund" and will be forced to pay up money that could otherwise have been used for health or education. The debt, which originated with a tractor purchase from Romania in the 1970s, was nearly written off in the early 1990s before the vulture fund snatched it up.

4. The government continues to face off against the opposition parties and numerous NGOs over the enactment of a new constitution. The long awaited process, which has yet to really get off the ground, is needed to revamp the current constitution in order to, among other things, reduce the power of the president. Naturally the president wants to wait as long into his five years as he can before getting moving on something that will limit his own powers, instead wanting to leave it to his successor to live with the consequences.

5. The Keep Zambia Clean campaign begins in earnest with the destruction of the homes of numerous people living in "illegal" settlements and pushing vendors off city streets. Most vendors were on the streets in the first place because there was not enough market space to hold them so simply removing them without providing an alternative doesn't seem like a terribly effective solution. This one did make international news, if only briefly. Oh well, it did accomplish one thing - the downtown streets are much cleaner. Now if only they could do something about the rotting garbage everywhere.