The sixth time is the attraction for Hakainde Hichilema, who has at closing secured the job he fought 15 years for. The perennial leader of the opposition will turn into Zambia’s new president within the times ahead, as the enterprise magnate inflicted a crushing blow on the incumbent at some level of the nation’s newest round of elections.
— Hakainde Hichilema (@HHichilema) August 16, 2021
Who is Hakainde Hichilema?
His backstory performs out fancy something from a Hollywood movie: Hichilema has long previous from rags to riches, collecting a serious quantity of wealth and channeling his energy into political commerce. His battles with the legislation own turn into the stuff of tale in Zambia, and simply just a few years after his closing detention, the president-elect has secured the top job.
- He was born to a sorrowful family within the southern district of Monze
- Hichilema is a practising Christian from the Tonga ethnic neighborhood, and is married with three children.
- The new president earned a scholarship to the University of Zambia, graduating with a level in economics and enterprise administration. He went on to plot an MBA degree on the University of Birmingham, within the UK.
- By the age of 26, he was CEO of the Zambian division of a stout global accountancy firm.
- Hakainde Hichilema is one of Zambia’s richest males, with enterprise interests spanning finance, ranching, property, and tourism.
- After the 2016 election, he faced treason prices for allegedly failing to give manner to the presidential motorcade.
- The president-elect spent four months in a maximum-security prison for the incident, sooner than the prices had been dropped.
- This got right here after he unsuccessfully challenged the consequence of the 2016 election, losing by under 100 000 votes.
How Zambia’s new president secured his dream job
With bigger than 2.8 million votes, he secured a landslide in opposition to his lengthy-time rival President Edgar Lungu, who garnered simply over 1.8 million of the ballots solid on 12 August. The victory is decisive, and eliminates the necessity for a jog-off.
Hakainde Hichilema, who has described himself as simply an genuine “cattle boy”, has contested and lost every election held within the southern African country since 2006, even though he has been buoyed each time by an elevated fragment of the vote. Now, his dreams will turn into a surely sobering actuality, with Zambia’s debt crisis topping the agenda.
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Who is Zambia’s new president? Eight things to know about Hakainde Hichilema
