Zambia opposition's 'King Cobra' wins presidential election
Michael Sata, the Zambian opposition leader nicknamed “King Cobra,” won election as president after a campaign in which he promised to spread the wealth of Africa's top copper producer.
Sata, who leads the Patriotic Front party, had 43 percent of the total votes counted, said Ireen Mambilima, chairwoman of the Electoral Commission. The 73-year-old Sata, who narrowly lost three previous elections, beat incumbent President Rupiah Banda, who secured 36 percent of the vote.
While ballots from 16 constituencies of 150 remain unverified, Sata can't lose the election as there aren't enough voters left to give Banda a lead, Mambilima told reporters today in the capital, Lusaka. The election was held Sept. 20, alongside a parliamentary ballot. Sata's party has so far won 62 seats against 38 for the MMD and 22 for the United Party for National Development, according to data from the electoral commission. Results for 27 seats are still to be verified. Sata will be inaugurated today, ending two decades of rule by the Movement for Multiparty Democracy.
Sata, known by his moniker because of his aggressive campaigning style, attracted followers among the southern African nation's youth with a promise to create jobs and spread wealth by extracting more benefits from a rapidly expanding copper industry. Banda, 74, had vowed to continue policies that have lured investors and led to average economic growth of more than 6 percent a year since he succeeded Levy Mwanawasa three years ago, when the former president died in office.
Mining Industry
“An upset by Sata will likely see a more resource nationalist policy for the mining sector, with potential tax hikes and greater government equity shares,” Sebastian Spio- Garbrah, managing director of New York-based DaMina Advisors LLP, a frontier-market risk adviser, wrote in a report to clients before the election results were known.
“While Banda's more genteel personality sits quite well with the growing upper-middle class, Sata's more pugnacious campaign style appeals strongly to the disillusioned bulk of unemployed youth and lower middle class salaried government workers,” he wrote.
The elections were seen as “credible,” Maria Muniz de Urquiza, the head of a European Union team that observed voting and counting, told reporters in Lusaka on Sept. 22.
While an opinion poll by the Lusaka-based Centre for Policy Dialogue had forecast a Banda victory, a surge in new young voters boosted Sata's chances. The number of registered voters climbed to about 5.1 million from 3.9 million three years ago, according to the electoral commission.
Time is Done
Banda conceded defeat, saying “the people have spoken.”
“We must all face the reality that sometimes it is time to change,” he said in a nationally broadcast speech from Lusaka. “It's time for me to step aside, my time is done.”
Zambia may become the world's fifth-largest copper-miner by 2013, Sophie Chung, an analyst at Wood Mackenzie's metals research unit, Brook Hunt, said in July. Production may more than double to 1.44 million metric tons by 2015, Brook Hunt said. Producers including First Quantum Minerals Ltd. and Vale SA are planning more than $6 billion in investment.
Chile is the world's biggest copper producer, with annual production of more than 5 million tons.
Shares in First Quantum, which plans to invest $1.9 billion in two Zambian mines, slumped 8 percent to 898 pence by 12:50 p.m. in London. Shares in the company have fallen 34 percent in the past five days, their biggest five-day drop since November 2008. The Bloomberg Europe Metals & Mining Index has dropped 18 percent over the same period.
Vedanta Resources Plc, which also operates mines in Zambia, fell 5.3 percent to 1,058 pence in London, extending its drop to 26 percent this week.
Zambia's kwacha lost 3.3 to 5,155 against the dollar as of 1:55 p.m. in Lusaka, its weakest level in more than a year.