Zambia’s chief opposition leader Michael Sata, a vocal critic of the Southern African country’s president, has been arrested and charged with false declaration of assets, an opposition party official said on Tuesday.
Police confirmed the arrest but gave no further details.
”He [Sata] has been charged with making a false declaration on August 11 as part of his nomination for the presidential elections,” Guy Scott, secretary general of Sata’s Patriotic Front (PF) party, told the media.
Sata (69) was runner-up to President Levy Mwanawasa in elections in September in which Mwanawasa was re-elected to a second five-year term.
Sata ran a populist and colourful campaign, promising to expel Chinese and Indian investors in the country’s key mining industry after accusing them of exploiting workers and paying little taxes.
He also praised the policies of President Robert Mugabe, whose policies are widely blamed for neighbouring Zimbabwe’s economic meltdown.
Although Sata lost the presidential race, his party swept municipal elections in the capital, Lusaka, and towns in the copperbelt mining hub. He vowed to ignore central government policies and to implement his own party’s agenda in these municipalities, including an independent tax regime.
Last week, Sata was denied police permission to hold public rallies in Lusaka to thank his supporters for voting for PF legislators in the capital, before the attorney general intervened and his rallies drew huge crowds.
Sata is expected to appear in court on Wednesday for a possible plea. — Reuters