Welcome to the new President
on Rob Wootton (Zambia), 24/Sep/2011 15:57, 34 days ago
The waiting was tense, then finally in the early hours of Friday morning the Presidential election results were announced and the Republic of Zambia had a new President, HE Mr Michael Chilufya Sata; the fifth president since independence. Mazabuka being a stronghold for one of the other opposition parties saw little of the joyous celebrations that took place elsewhere in the country, though there will still plenty of car horns being honked and generally people wearing smiles on their faces once they had learnt of the result; most people here seemed happy with the outcome.The handover of power was surprisingly quick and efficient. The former President, Rupiah Banda, had delivered his farewell speech by Friday lunchtime and by the afternoon Michael Sata was taking the oath of office in front of thousands of his jubilant supporters in Lusaka. Marco and I watched the inauguration on Zamia’s national broadcaster ZNBC who sadly never quite got the pictures, nor the sound quality, right for the new President’s first speech. The wonky camera work was amusing. Despite this the pictures of the crowd still conveyed the sense that this was the result that the people wanted. There seems to be a sense of relief that the elections are over and that overall they were peaceful. People also feel that the change in Government can lead to real change and benefit everyone and not just the fortunate few. Both the speeches made by the former and the new Presidents were positive and conciliatory; let’s hope this good start continues.