Mutharika’s foe ‘King Cobra’ Sata wins Zambia presidency

Zambia’s opposition leader Michael Sata was declared the winner of the country’s presidential elections on Friday, defeating incumbent Rupiah Banda in polls.

Malawi President Bingu wa Mutharika announced on Thursday that he was going to attend the inauguration of the new president of Zamba in Lusaka on Friday.

The announcement monitored on state broadcaster MBC was made before the official results were announced.

But Zambia's Chief Justice Ernest Sakala declared Sata the winner after he received 1,150,045 votes compared to Banda’s 961,796 with 95.3 percent of constituencies counted.

His Excellency the President-elect of Zambia: 'King Cobra' Miicheal Sata

President Sata, 74 and nicknamed “King Cobra” because of his venomous tongue, has not had a rosy relations with Mutharika who ordered his deportation when he visited Malawi in 2006.

Zambia President elect questioned Mutharika’s decision to allow former President Rupiah Banda to interfere with politics in Malawi when he deported him from there on grounds that he did not want Zambian politics in Malawi.

Mutharika and Banda have enjoyed good political ties and the Malawi leader is on record saying that the former Zambian leader helped him secure his second term of office in 2009.

“Bingu wa Mutharika deported me from his country because he thought I was going to help Bakili Muluzi (Malawi former president) but he President Wa Mutharika is admitting that it is Rupiah Banda’s rigging which made him win the second term,” Sata is on record saying.

President Sata's Patriotic Front (PF) earlier accused the Banda's Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) of bringing in the Malawian people to add to the number of votes so that he can rig elections.

PF impounded a bus carrying 22 Malawian citizens in Mpulungu in the Northern Province of Zambia. They were found with Zambian National Registration and Voters Cards and were arrested.

Zambian polls have been described as “well-managed.”

Nyasa Times 23 Sep, 2011

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Source: http://www.nyasatimes.com/malawi/2011/09/23/mutharika%e2%80%99s-foe-%e2%80%98king-cobra%e2%80%99-sata-wins-zambia-presidency/
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