Ex-Zambian leader takes up U.S. job

  1. Posted on Friday 23 March 2012 - 13:15
    Sanday
    Image of Sanday
    Sanday Chongo Kabange in Hong Kong
    Zambia's former head of state Rupiah Banda has left his native southern Africa state to take up a new job as African President-in-Residence at Boston University in the United States. Banda, 75, announced his retirement from politics, a day after his party, the Movement for Multiparty for Democracy was stripped off its legal status by the registrar of societies for failing to settle a debt.
    Rupiah Banda
    The former president said he would briefly leave Zambia to take up a new role in the U.S after he accepted an appointment as the African President-in-Residence at Boston University.

    Banda served as Zambia's ambassador to the U.S., then vice president under President Levy Mwanawasa, taking over as acting president in June 2008 when Mwanawasa died after a stroke.

    He was elected president in October 2008, oversaw notable national growth rates during his tenure with GDP peaking at 7.6% in 2010, and was defeated for re-election in September 2011 by his successor, Michael Sata of the Patriotic Front.

    The bubbly 75-year-old conceded defeat and smoothly handed over power to Sata at the time some leaders in Africa cling to power at the height of the Arab spring that swept through some parts of North Africa and Middle East.

    Charles Stith, a senior official at Boston University told the Associated Press there was much to learn from Banda's experience pulling Zambia out of the global recession.

    The President-in-Residence program enables a democratically elected former African leader to spend up to two years at Boston University sharing insights on contemporary trends in Africa.

    Banda is the program's eighth president.

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