Zambia’s New President, Edgar Lungu, Is Sworn In

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/26/world/africa/zambias-new-president-edgar-lungu-is-sworn-in.html

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LONDON — After weeks of political wrangling and tension, Edgar Lungu was sworn in on Sunday as Zambia’s new president, overcoming a close political challenge and divisions within his own Patriotic Front party to secure a narrow majority in an election called after the death of his predecessor in October.

Mr. Lungu, who headed both the Justice and Defense Ministries in the previous government, will serve out the remainder of President Michael Sata’s term until new elections in the fall of 2016.

According to the country’s election commission, Mr. Lungu, 58, won about 48.3 percent of the ballot in Zambia’s 150 constituencies. His main challenger, Hakainde Hichilema, a wealthy businessman and economist who leads the United Party for National Development, received about 46.7 percent of the vote.

The turnout was less than one-third of the electorate — a low level of participation that some analysts attributed to heavy rains that slowed the delivery of ballot boxes to remote areas and forced the extension of voting by a day in some parts of Zambia, a former British colony whose economy is heavily dependent on copper exports.

In a contentious move after Mr. Sata’s death, the interim government raised royalty taxes imposed on mining companies, which warned that the increase could cost thousands of jobs and possibly lead them to close some mines. Mr. Lungu said that the tax increase would be maintained, Reuters reported.

As the results came in on Saturday, Mr. Hichilema, the opposition leader, condemned the vote as fraudulent. But Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, the chairwoman of the executive arm of the African Union, congratulated Zambians for “organizing an exemplary, successful and peaceful election,” Agence France-Presse reported.

The outcome ensured a degree of continuity since Mr. Lungu belongs to the same Patriotic Front party as his predecessor. But the transition was fraught, with rival factions of the governing party locked in a bitter power struggle over the choice of candidate in the presidential vote.

The possibility of strife in Zambia came as a political drama also played out in its southern neighbor, Zimbabwe, where President Robert G. Mugabe purged his governing ZANU-PF party and elevated his wife, Grace Mugabe, to high office.

Mr. Mugabe attended Sunday’s inauguration in Lusaka, the Zambian capital, and said he was confident that Mr. Lungu would “succeed to keep Zambia united,” Agence France-Presse reported “One Zambia, one nation,” Mr. Mugabe said, using a slogan popularized by Kenneth Kaunda, Zambia’s founding president, who remained in office from independence in 1964 to 1991.