ON 23 September 2011, Michael Sata, leader of the opposition Patriotic Front (PF) party, was inaugurated as the fifth elected President of Zambia since independence from Britain in 1964. This followed his victory against incumbent Rupiah Banda of the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD). After a decade in opposition, and at the fourth attempt, Sata, 74, overcame strong competition from Banda, 75, and nine other opposition presidential contenders. He obtained 42 per cent of the vote, ahead of the sitting president, who polled 35.6 per cent. In the early hours of the same day, soon after being declared winner, Sata addressed the media: ‘How do I receive this victory? Well, this is the beginning of a long journey.’ In fact, it was the exact opposite. At the formation of the PF ten years earlier, Sata had indicated a single-minded focus on becoming President of Zambia, a focus that could be traced back to his days in the grassroots structures of the United National Independence Party (UNIP) in the early 1960s. ‘I am coming from grassroots politics to rule’, he said in October 2001. ‘I will retire from politics after being President [of Zambia] in State House.’ In this sense, his generally unexpected victory in the 2011 election was not the beginning of a long journey, but the end of one.

This book explores that historical journey, which began before the achievement of independence and therefore cuts across many supposed divides in Zambian political history, such as the colonial, post-colonial, one-party state, and multi-party eras. In this way, the book addresses a major gap in contemporary academic accounts of Zambian history, which tends to get segmented into different periods and to downplay the importance of individual leaders in the broader processes of political change. It demonstrates that the successful process of political mobilisation and the history of individual leadership that led Sata to victory in the 2011 election had deep roots. The leadership that he provided, the grievances that he articulated and played on, the policy appeals around which he rallied support and the language with which he expressed those appeals, the constituencies he targ1eted and mobilised, and the nature and style of his political strategy, all had their origins in much earlier phases of Zambian history, starting from the late-colonial period.