Lusaka, Zambia
President is touchy: A Zambian opposition leader has been charged with defamation for comparing the country’s president to a potato. Frank Bwalya, head of the Alliance for a Better Zambia party, faces five years in prison for calling President Michael Sata a chumbu mushololwa, which means a potato or, metaphorically, someone who doesn’t listen to advice. “President Sata is the same old man who was on all radio stations defaming former Presidents [Rupiah] Banda and [Levy] Mwanawasa, and nobody arrested him,” said ABZ Secretary-General Eric Chanda after Bwalya was charged. Sata was elected in 2011 on a pledge to improve freedom of speech and of the press in the former British colony.
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