Statecraft & Independence
Landmark
Frederick Chiluba
1943 – 2011
The trade unionist who ended one-party rule and beat Kenneth Kaunda
Landmark is level 2 of 4 in the Zambia Hall of Fame: a first that opened a door, or the pre-eminent figure of their generation in this country. See how the levels work.
Why they are here
A shop steward turned union leader who built the movement that forced Zambia back to multiparty politics and then beat the founding president at the polls in 1991. His two terms opened the economy and, by wide agreement, opened the till.
Frederick Jacob Titus Chiluba worked on a sisal estate and in a bus company before rising through the unions to chair the Zambia Congress of Trade Unions, from where he led the campaign against Kenneth Kaunda's one-party state.
The Movement for Multiparty Democracy won the October 1991 election with three quarters of the vote and Chiluba took office as Zambia's second president. He dismantled the state-controlled economy, privatised the copper mines, and presided over the return of a free press and competitive politics. When his supporters pushed to amend the constitution for a third term in 2001, the campaign against it — inside his own party as much as outside — defeated him, and he stepped down.
The Movement for Multiparty Democracy won the October 1991 election with three quarters of the vote and Chiluba took office as Zambia's second president. He dismantled the state-controlled economy, privatised the copper mines, and presided over the return of a free press and competitive politics. When his supporters pushed to amend the constitution for a third term in 2001, the campaign against it — inside his own party as much as outside — defeated him, and he stepped down.
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