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[TD="class: articleTitle"]Zambia's former president Chiluba dies [/TD]
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[TD] Final years spent in political obscurity after a chequered career that ended with a lengthy corruption trial.
Last Modified: 18 Jun 2011 06:42
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Chiluba fell from grace after having attracted the adulation of his countrymen in the early 1990s
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Frederick Chiluba, who was president of Zambia from 1991 to 2001, has died at his home.
He had been suffering from heart and kidney problems and Emmanuel Mwamba, Chiluba's spokesperson, said he had earlier complained of stomach pains.
"He died five minutes after midnight at his home," Mwamba told the AFP news agency on Saturday.
When Chiluba took over the country as president in 1991, ending the 27-year rule of Zambia's founding president, Kenneth Kaunda, he was hailed for saving the country from one-party rule.
Chiluba became president of the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy, a coalition of unions, civic and church groups as well as former Kaunda loyalists who had grown disillusioned with his autocratic style.
Initially welcomed by the West who had struggled to get on with the leftist Kaunda, Chiluba won praise for his emphasis on democracy, human rights and governmental transparency.
But his image was tainted by a lengthy corruption trial, stemming from abuse of authority and theft of public funds amounting to $500,000 while in office.
Acquitted of charges
After unsuccessfully trying to stay in power beyond his scheduled 10-year term, and as evidence of his personal excesses mounted, Chiluba was convicted by a court in London of pocketing $46 million of state funds.
He was later acquitted of the charges in 2008.
Chiluba was a virtual prisoner in his final years, confined to his residence after authorities confiscated his passport to prevent him from evading justice.
His final reputation marked a dramatic fall from grace for a man who attracted the adulation of tens of thousands of supporters when he took on Kaunda who had ruled largely unopposed since independence in 1964.
This diminutive leader - he was just 1.5 metres tall - oversaw the sale of more than 250 state companies to private firms.
But while the sell-offs were originally seen as part of a programme of reforms, much of the sale price went unaccounted for while hundreds of thousands were left out of work.
Chiluba soon also garnered a reputation for the kind of authoritarian tendencies which had been derided in Kaunda: sacking colleagues, jailing outspoken journalists, bullyng off opponents and rounding up rivals.
"I am a political engineer," he would declare after ousting opponents. In 1997, he survived a military coup and then used the incident to detain several of his opponents, including Kaunda.
Vigorous resistance
After serving the constitutionally allowed two terms in office, Chiluba attempted to amend the constitution to run for a third term but he met vigorous resistance, with tens of thousands protesting in the streets.
Sensing a humiliating defeat, he drew up a hasty exit strategy which saw him hurriedly pluck a successor, Levy Mwanawasa, from political obscurity.
Mwanawasa, a former mild-mannered vice-president who had returned to a career as an attorney, turned against his mentor and persuaded parliament to strip him of his immunity so he could be prosecuted for grand graft.
Despite the conviction in London, Zambian prosecutors failed to convict him of corruption in Zambian courts, or even to convince the judiciary to apply the British judgement locally so his assets could be seized.
In many ways, Chiluba was an enigma and much of his background remained in dispute.
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18 June 2011 Last updated at 07:30 GMT [h=3]Share this page[/h]
Zambia's first elected President Frederick Chiluba dies[/h]
Frederick Chiluba developed an authoritarian approach to his critics during his presidency
Frederick Chiluba, Zambia's first democratically elected president, has died at home at the age of 68.
Mr Chiluba was hailed as Zambia's "liberator" by his supporters when he came to office in 1991 after 27 years of single party Socialist rule.
He won praise for his economic and political reforms but was later accused of embezzlement and turning a blind eye to corruption.
The cause of his death is not known but he was known to have heart problems.
Under Mr Chiluba, Zambia was considered to be a model of African democracy and his presidency was welcomed in the West.
The former trade union leader and son of a copper miner introduced many reforms which dismantled the restrictive policies of former President Kenneth Kaunda.
But he was dogged by corruption allegations and was accused of taking an authoritarian approach to his political opponents, firing critical colleagues and jailing outspoken journalists.
He attempted to alter the constitution to allow him to run for a third term in office in 2001, but stood down after huge public protests.
Mr Chiluba was prosecuted for alleged embezzlement in 2002 but acquitted after a six-year trial.
In 2007, he was convicted of fraud by a London court and ordered to repay $58m in embezzled funds, but the ruling was never carried out by Zambia.
He spent his final years at his resident in Lusaka, confined by ill health and the confiscation of his passport by the authorities.