Mbeki cheers Chiluba for resisting 3rd term

President Thabo Mbeki on Friday welcomed the decision of Zambia’s President Frederick Chiluba not to run for a third term in office. In a letter published in the ruling African National Congress’ (ANC) online publication ‘Today’, Mbeki said the story that Zambia’s ruling party wanted to amend their country’s constitution to enable Chiluba to serve a third term had come at a bad time for Africa.

“This was a most disturbing development indeed,” Mbeki said. “Such proceedings in Zambia would communicate the message that ... our region was intent on acting in unconstitutional ways, and was regressing to the situation when there were presidents-for-life, as was the case under the late president Kamuzu Banda of Malawi.

“We had ourselves discussed this matter with President Chiluba when we paid a state visit to Zambia last year. We had agreed that he would not seek to have the constitution amended, and would not run for a third term,” Mbeki wrote.