Levy Mwanawasa

Levy Patrick Mwanawasa ( born September 3, 1948 in Mufulira, † August 19, 2008 in Paris) was from 2002 until his death in 2008 President of Zambia.

Life and political career

Mwanawasa was born as the second child of a family of ten children in Mufulira. After studying law at the University of Zambia, he worked from 1974 to 1978 as an attorney in private practice. He then founded his own law firm. 1985/86 he held temporarily from the mandate of the Attorney General. Beginning of the 1990s he joined the Movement for Multi Party Democracy ( MMD) of Frederick Chiluba. After the first multi-party elections in 1991, he was Vice President and Deputy to the new President Chiluba. In 1994 he retired from the office and returned to his legal practice. During this time he was also elected member of the National Assembly.

Despite a speech disorder that was caused by a serious car accident in 1991, Mwanawasa ran on a proposal Chiluba in 2001 as President of Zambia. After his victory in the elections, he joined on 2 January 2002 at his new office. Shortly after taking office, he began an anti -corruption commission, the 2003 introduced the first corruption trial against his predecessor, Chiluba in the way. In February 2005, Mwanawasa was in the Baptist church of Lusaka baptized and joined the church at.

In the presidential elections of 28 September 2006 Mwanawasa was re-elected for a second term.

Since mid- 2008, he was known chairman of the Council of the South African developing countries and in contrast to many other African leaders as a sharp critic of Robert Mugabe.

End of June 2008, he suffered a stroke during a meeting of the African Union in the Egyptian resort of Sharm El -Sheikh. He was flown to Paris for treatment, where he died on 19 August 2008 in the military hospital Percy.

He was married to his second wife Maureen Mwanawasa and had with her four children together.