Election campaign opens with swipe at donors

More than 10,000 Zambians attended a rally on Saturday where President Frederick Chiluba launched his party's general election campaign by taking a swipe at Western donors, AFP reported. The rally was an effort by the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) to firm up its base of support in the central province of Copperbelt, after a devastating political year that saw most of Chiluba's top ministers defect to the opposition. Chiluba has yet to set a date for the election, but the poll is expected to come in late October or early November. Chiluba spoke to the crowd in the national language, Bemba, saying he wanted to reach out to the people, and painted the opposition as a puppet of Western donors. "The donors want to put in a puppet government. Defend the sovereignty of the country. We should not permit a foreigner to run this country," Chiluba said. "Your friends in Zimbabwe, the members of (the ruling) ZANU-PF, they have been voting for the ruling party against the party funded by the donors because they want their land," Chiluba added, referring to the violent crisis over land ownership in the neighbouring nation. Officially, the rally was held to introduce the MMD's candidate Levy Mwanawasa, who was a vice president during Chiluba's first term but who has since withdrawn from political life. But Chiluba used most of the speech to criticise the donor community, saying he had evidence that donors were supporting an opposition party to unseat his government. A raft of top ministers and politicians left the MMD in May in protest at Chiluba's effort to run for an unconstitutional third term. He abandoned that effort in the face of massive protests. The breakaway politicians now have their own party, the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD), which is expected to pose a stiff challenge to the MMD.