Following the death of Zambian President Michael Sata, Vice-President Guy Scott has been named acting President, making him Africa’s first white head of state since FW de Klerk in apartheid South Africa.
According to the Defence Minister Edgar Lungu, Presidential elections to choose a permanent successor will be held within 90 days.
President Sata died in the UK at the age of 77 after receiving treatment for an undisclosed illness. He was being treated at London’s King Edward VII hospital where he died on Tuesday night.
Mr Scott regularly stood in for the president at official events, but was never appointed acting president when Mr Sata was abroad – so this is his first time to officially lead the country.
Guy Scott, who is often disparagingly referred to as the “ceremonial vice-president”, was born in 1944 in Northern Rhodesia after father emigrated from Glasgow to work as a doctor on the railways. A Cambridge-trained economist, he entered politics in 1990 joining the MMD which won the first multiparty elections the next year.
As agricultural minister he oversaw the recovery from a devastating drought in 1992/93.He joined Michael Sata’s Patriotic Front (PF) in 2001 and was appointed vice-president in September 2011 after the PF’s election victory.
However, Mr Scott may not be able to contest for president as his parents were not born in Zambia and a constitutional clause on parentage may nullify any attempt to run for president.
