INSTANT VIEW: Zambia's Banda wins presidential election
LUSAKA (Reuters) - Rupiah Banda, a pro-business centrist, was sworn in as Zambia's president on Sunday after a narrow election win, but the main opposition party said it would challenge the result in court.
Below is reaction to the election result:
OLIVER SAASA, ZAMBIAN ECONOMIST AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR
"I think Banda is the right choice because he has a high level of maturity and good credentials for economic management. But he faces the challenge of meeting the expectations of the people to reduce poverty and to deliver social services, especially to the rural areas."
CHIBAMBA KANYAMA, SECRETARY OF THE ECONOMICS ASSOCIATION OF
ZAMBIA
"Banda needs to continue to address the issues he focused on during his campaign. He needs to focus on what will be in the budget in 2009 and state whether the minister of finance Ng'andu Magande will be retained because that is what everybody is focusing on.
"Every investor is asking whether the economy will be managed in the same way, this is critical as investors are looking for a credible and clean person like Magande at ministry of finance."
GOODWELL LUNGU, TRANSPARENCY INTERNATIONAL'S EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR IN ZAMBIA
"I think the key expectation is that he should be extremely firm in the fight against corruption because he will discover that some of the people involved are those who supported his campaign or are close to him. It will be a very challenging and daunting task for him because corruption cuts across people who are senior in government."
DAVID CHEWE, MANAGING DIRECTOR OF ACCESS BANK ZAMBIA
"We are all expecting him to do more to support education, power projects, and we wait to see how he will improve pay conditions of public workers.
"What I see and what we are all looking forward to is the government maintaining investor confidence, especially that he has spoken of embracing the opposition and all Zambians."
(Reporting by Shapi Shacinda and Lewis Nyirenda; Editing by Paul Simao and Tim Pearce)
