Meet Guy Scott, Zambia’s Vice President

Newly elected Zambia President Michael Sata has appointed Guy Scott (pictured), as vice president, making him the first white man to hold that high position since independence.

Scott, can potentially become president if anything happens to Sata, who has a heart condition.

In an exclusive interview in Lusaka, Dr Guy Scott, a Zambian of British Scottish descent, said that his appointment confirmed that Zambians are not racists.

He is also pleased by the fact that most people that voted for him as Lusaka Central member of parliament, a prelude to his appointment as vice president, were black Zambians.

“White-Zambians and Indian-Zambian are very happy because it shows that they are not up against the mindless prejudice. But I don’t take that as a big honor. The big honor is that the black people in Zambia are the ones who are cheering,” said 67-year-old Scott, who was born in Zambia’s Livingstone town. “I can’t walk a 100-metre in this town without being mobbed, not by anyone who is against me but by people who want to shake my hand and have the picture taken on mobile.”

He said he treasured President Michael Sata’s decision to appoint him as his deputy.

Sata won an election dominated by a single issue, China. Specifically, it was an election overshadowed by the way China, in its ruthless drive to secure supplies of raw materials, has targeted Zambia’s production of copper, cobalt, nickel and coal and behaved extremely badly in the process, especially in dealing with local workers.

Sata says he’s determined to stop China doing as it pleases in one of Africa’s most resource-rich nations. And that’s likely to prove a major challenge to Beijing in its drive to secure the flow of the raw materials it so desperately requires.