Zambian president Rupiah Banda concedes defeat in election

Zambian President Rupiah Banda conceded election defeat to opposition leader Michael Sata, saying “the people have spoken.”

“We must all face the reality that sometimes it is time to change,” the 74-year-old Banda said in a nationally broadcast address from Lusaka, the capital. “It's time for me to step aside, my time is done.”

Sata, the 73-year-old leader of the Patriotic Front who is known as “King Cobra” for his temper and aggressive manner, won the Sept. 20 election after losing in his previous three bids for the presidency. The vote ends a period of rule by Banda's Movement for Multi-Party Democracy that stretches back to 1991, when Zambia's founding President Kenneth Kaunda ended one-party control of the southern African nation.

The Zambian currency, the kwacha, fell to the lowest for more than a year and traded at 5,155 per dollar at midday local time.

“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.

Banda won 36 percent of votes to 43 percent for Sata, according to Ireen Mambilima, chairwoman of the Electoral Commission. He said in his address that Zambians should “rally behind their new president.”

Mining Talks

Sata said in a phone interview that the future “wouldn't be easy,” declining to elaborate. Zambia's state broadcaster said he would be sworn in as president today at the country's High Court.

The incoming government will be seeking early meetings with mining companies, Sata spokesman Miles Sampa told Bloomberg in a telephone interview today.

Talks will address “how we can collect more money correctly from the mines,” he said. “We want to reduce poverty as a priority and money from the mines will help us achieve our plan.”