Zambia Country Report

Zambia’s return to multi-party democracy in 1991 was one of the earliest of Africa’s third wave democratic transitions, ending twenty years of one-party rule under the United National Independence Party (UNIP). The former president, Kenneth Kaunda, consented to hold multi-party elections and accepted the results when he and his party lost the election. The founding elections brought the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) to power in Zambia, a position which it has subsequently maintained. The MMD government embarked on a program of rapid economic liberalization, privatizing nearly all of the stateowned enterprises in ten years. Most significantly, the division and sale of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines (ZCCM) to a variety of largely foreign-owned and run mining companies dramatically changed the political and economic landscape.