Levy Mwanawasa was only the third president of Zambia since the country won independence from Britain in 1964. A prominent lawyer and former solicitor-general, he won a narrow victory in the presidential election in 2001 followed by a more emphatic endorsement in a presidential poll in September 2006. Initially some expected President Mwanawasa to be little more than a front man for his predecessor Frederick Chiluba. But he was quick to demonstrate his independence, removing Chiluba’s aides from government and backing investigations into graft by the former President.

Mwanawasa’s reputation for integrity was acknowledged even by his opponents — his resignation as Vice-President in 1994 over allegations of corruption within the administration was a rare example of a senior African politician giving up public office on a point of principle. Mwanawasa was involved in a serious car accident in 1991, the repercussions of which affected his health for the rest of his life.

Levy Patrick Mwanawasa was born in 1948 in Mufulira, north of Kitwe, in the copperbelt of what was then Northern Rhodesia (later Zambia). He was a member of the Lenje tribe and the second of ten children. He studied law at the University of Zambia, entering private practice in 1974. Four years later Mwanawasa established his own firm and had, by the early 1980s, become one of the leading lawyers in the country. In 1981-83 he served as vice-chairman of the Law Association of Zambia. He served briefly as Solicitor-General during Kenneth Kaunda’s presidency in 1985, but returned to private practice the following year. By this time, he already had a reputation for taking on cases which other, more politically ambitious, lawyers refused to contemplate. Mwanawasa’s courage was shown in 1989, when he defended a former army commander and future Vice-President, Christon Tembo, who was accused of plotting to overthrow Kaunda.

Mwanawasa, as a highly respected public figure, was an attractive recruit for the increasingly confident Zambian opposition as Kaunda, in the face of mounting unrest, accepted a move to multiparty politics at the start of the 1990s. The lawyer joined forces with the Zambian trade union leader, Frederick Chiluba, in forming the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy or MMD. Mwanawasa became Chiluba’s runningmate in the presidential election in 1991, when the latter stormed to victory at the polls in a result that sent shock-waves across Africa. Chiluba and his deputy Mwanawasa were hailed, at home and abroad, as among a new breed of African democrats set to change the way the continent was governed.

But within weeks of becoming Vice-President, Mwanawasa suffered a huge personal setback. In December, 1991, he was involved in a bad road accident that left an aide dead. Mwanawasa suffered multiple injuries and was flown for treatment to Johannesburg where he was kept in hospital for several months. The accident permanently scarred his health, and left him with slurred speech. But it didn’t weaken his political principles. In 1994, Mwanawasa resigned as Vice-President citing abuse of office and insubordination by some of his colleagues, which he said had put his own integrity in question.

Mwanawasa returned to private practice, but despite his implicit criticism of the Government remained on good terms with President Chiluba even though he challenged the latter unsuccessfully for the leadership of the MMD in 1996. Chiluba’s promotion as a new-style African leader was, by the late 1990s, looking increasingly misjudged. He was criticised widely for an apparent fixation with his predecessor Kenneth Kaunda against whom he conducted a public vendetta, and was beginning to face growing opposition within the governing MMD. Chiluba had won re-election in 1996, but by the end of the decade a majority within the MMD were making it clear they would not back him for a third term in 2001.

Chiluba turned to Mwanawasa who, easily outclassing his rivals, won the backing of the MMD executive committee in August 2001, to be its presidential candidate. Mwanawasa duly won the election in December 2001, beating ten other candidates but with less than 30 per cent of the vote. Some of his opponents cried foul, and international observers noted serious irregularities both in the campaign and with the election itself. But Mwanawasa was sworn in as Zambia’s third president in January 2002, despite the protests. Questions of his legitimacy as President, however, cast a shadow over Mwanawasa’s first term. Three opposition candidates petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn his election. The court eventually agreed that the poll had indeed been flawed but ruled that the irregularities had not been sufficient to affect the result.

Mwanawasa made the fight against corruption the centrepiece of his presidency, surprising observers by giving the green light to investigations into graft in the Chiluba era. Within a few months, parliament had voted to lift Chiluba’s own immunity from prosecution and in February 2003, the former President was arrested and charged with corruption — the start of long-running and often disrupted legal proceedings. Later that year Mwanawasa demonstrated his compassion, commuting the death sentences against 44 soldiers convicted for their role in an alleged coup attempt against Chiluba in 1997.

Mwanawasa’s anti-graft campaign helped Zambia to attract more foreign investment and the growth rate rose to above 5 per cent. The IMF, World Bank and Western donors rewarded the Zambian leader by writing off a large proportion of the country’s foreign debt. But the vast majority of Zambia’s 11 million population continued to live in abject poverty. Mwanawasa apologised to the nation in 2005 for the failure to eliminate poverty at the same time as he declared a national emergency and appealed for international food aid.

Throughout his first term, Mwanawasa’s physical fitness to be president remained an issue in the background, and sometimes in the foreground. In April 2006 he suffered what was described as a minor stroke and spent several weeks in a London hospital. This led to opposition calls for an independent team of doctors to verify his fitness for office. Such a team of doctors duly affirmed in June 2006, that he was well enough both to remain in power and to start campaigning for re-election in September. Mwanawasa accused his opponents of misleading people into believing he was dying.

He won re-election in September, 2006 with 43 per cent of the vote. But his main challenger, Michael Sata, who had appeared to be heading for victory during the early part of counting, claimed he had been robbed of victory. Sata’s supporters clashed with police as it became clear that Mwanawasa would prevail. Sata promised to make Mwanawasa’s next five-year term what he called an exercise in misery. Undeterred, the re-elected president announced a new economic recovery programme with encouraging foreign investment at its heart. Early in 2007 the Chinese president, Hu Jintao, visited Zambia and inaugurated a huge mining investment zone.

Mwanawasa was taken ill after suffering a stroke in late June on the eve of an African Union summit in Egypt. He was transferred to a Parisian hospital where he eventually died. His stroke came as he was destined to play a key role, as the current chairman of the South African Development Community, in trying to end the crisis in Zimbabwe.

He is survived by his second wife, Maureen, their four children, and two children from his first marriage.

Levy Mwanawasa, President of Zambia since 2001, was born on September 3, 1948. He died following a stroke on August 19, 2008, aged 59