Profile: Zambia's Zimbabwe-born acting President Rupiah Banda

ZAMBIA'S vice-president Rupiah Banda, 71, who was poised Tuesday to become acting president following the death of Zambia's leader of seven years, Levy Mwanawasa, is a career diplomat with a sideline in business.

Under the Zambian constitution, when a sitting president dies, the vice president automatically becomes president but must call elections within 90 days.

Banda was born in 1937 in Gwanda, in the south of what was then British-ruled Southern Rhodesia, but he has has Zambian nationality.

Following the independence of what was then Northern Rhodesia from Britain in 1964 Banda served as ambassador to Egypt first, then the United States.

He also served as Zambia's representative to the United Nations before being made foreign minister in the 1970s in the administration of Zambia's first post-independence leader, Kenneth Kaunda.

With a degree in economics, he was also at one point the managing director of the National Agricultural Marketing Board (NAMBOARD), which is responsible for buying locally-produced staple foods.

After his spell as foreign minister, Banda served 10 years as a parliamentarian between 1978 and 1988.

As the owner of KB Davis, a firm that supplies mining equipment in the north-central Copperbelt region, he is also a prominent businessman.

His appointment to the post of vice president following Mwanawasa's reelection to a second five-year term in 2006 was seen as a move to reward Zambians in his home area, a stronghold of his (and Kaunda's) United National Independence Party, for supporting the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD).

Reflecting on his career during an address to ambassadors in recent months, Banda said: "The diplomatic service was a launching pad. It gave me all the experience needed in statecraft, diplomacy and governance."

After Mwanawasa fell out of favour with Zimbabwe's authoritarian leader Robert Mugabe for calling Zimbabwe a "sinking Titanic" last year it was Banda who was dispatched to Harare to smooth the ruffled feathers.

Despite being 11 years the senior of deceased President Levy Mwanwasa, who was dogged by health problems, Banda, a grandfather, says he is in good health. - dpa
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