Bush leads tributes to Zambia's President

US president George Bush led tributes to Zambia’s President Levy Mwanawasa, who broke the African tradition of silence and solidarity among leaders to denounce neighbouring Zimbabwe’s economic ruin.

Mr Mwanawasa, 59, died yesterday in a French military hospital, two months after collapsing with a stroke at an African Union summit in Egypt.

Mr Bush praised Mr Mwanawasa for speaking out against human rights abuses and threats to democracy “when many others were silent”.

“President Mwanawasa was a champion of democracy in his own country and throughout Africa,” Mr Bush said.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy called Mr Mwanawasa’s death “a great loss for the African continent”.

Mr Mwanawasa was airlifted from Egypt to France’s Percy Military Hospital, where he remained until he had an urgent operation on Monday and died yesterday, said Vice President Rupiah Banda.

Mr Banda made the televised announcement “with great grief and deep sorrow”.

Mr Mwanawasa’s illness precipitated power struggles within and between Zambia’s political parties and his death leaves a power vacuum.

He did not groom a successor and Mr Banda was expected to continue as acting president until an election that must be held within 90 days.

Widely regarded as a man of integrity, the late president won praise for breaking the traditional silence of African leaders to criticise his autocratic neighbour, Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe – which encouraged a other African presidents to show their displeasure.

Speaking earlier this year of Zimbabwe and the exodus of millions of its citizens, Mr Mwanawasa said the country “has sunk into such economic difficulties that it may be likened to a sinking Titanic whose passengers are jumping out in a bid to save their lives”.

Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was one of the first to pay tribute to a “good friend and comrade” who stood up for democracy in southern Africa.

“His passing-on is a sad day to the Zimbabwean people,” said Mr Tsvangirai, who had repeatedly asked that Mr Mwanawasa replace South African president Thabo Mbeki in mediating the Zimbabwean crisis.

Mugabe was long revered as an African independence hero, but the softly spoken Mr Mwanawasa – Zambia’s third president since independence from Britain in 1964 - was not bound by the liberation movement ties of older African leaders.

But Mr Mwanawasa was equally outspoken about Western criticism of the unconditional aid that China is pouring into Africa, as well as hundreds of millions of dollars China has invested in mining Zambian copper.

“You people in the West redeem yourself before you begin attacking China,” he told an audience in the United States last year.

At home and abroad, Mr Mwanawasa won praise for fighting corruption and modernising Zambia’s economy, but he admitted that he had failed to lift the nation of 12 million people out of crushing poverty.

Born in 1948 in the northern town of Mufulira, Mr Mwanawasa graduated from the University of Zambia and practised law before going into government service. After a stint as solicitor general in 1986, under Zambia’s first president, Kenneth Kaunda, he became a key figure in the push for multi-party democracy.

When Frederick Chiluba defeated Mr Kaunda in Zambia’s first multi-party elections in 1991, Mr Mwanawasa was appointed vice president, but soon quit, complaining of corruption.

Still, Mr Chiluba later tapped Mr Mwanawasa to be his successor. Mr Mwanawasa won the presidency in 2001 in an election marred by allegations of fraud, and was re-elected with 43% of the vote in a 2006 poll generally regarded as transparent and fair.

He seized on anti-corruption and economic reforms and targeted Mr Chiluba, who was found guilty in a London court of stealing €29m from state coffers during his 10-year rule.

Mr Mwanawasa tamed inflation, from 21.7% when he became president to an estimated 6.6%. His economic austerity and market-opening policies drew support from Western donors who in 2005 cancelled nearly all of Zambia’s €4.5bn foreign debt.

But critics accused him of turning a blind eye to the plight of the poor in a country where less than 20% of the population has formal employment and the majority lives below the poverty line. Zambia’s sprawling townships, homes of the urban poor, became the power base of his populist rival, Michael Sata.

Mr Mwanawasa is survived by his wife Maureen and six children.