ABSTRACT
In the past decade, Zambian authorities have tried to combine the country’s return to multiparty democracy with liberal economic reforms but with somewhat contradictory results. Uniquely, the transfer of power in 1991 from the United National Independence Party (UNIP), in government for close to thirty years, to the newly formed Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) was without major setbacks or violence. On assuming power, the MMD embarked on ‘tough policies’ including removal of controls on prices and the exchange rate, public sector retrenchment, reform of financial institutions and privatisation. Trade reform led to the reduction of tariff rates from 100 per cent down to 40 per cent. From the outset, the MMD blamed Zambia’s earlier poor economic performance on UNIP’s pursuit of ‘failed socialist policies’, arguing that to generate high and sustainable growth required firm and credible reforms. Lauding the combination of economic reforms and multiparty politics as the dawn of democratic governance in the region, donors increased aid flows.
