FACTBOX: Zambia ruling party presidential candidate Banda

(Reuters) - Zambia's ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy named Vice President Rupiah Banda on Friday as its candidate to contest a presidential election due in November.

Below are five facts about Banda, 72.

* He was appointed vice president in 2006 and took over as head of government after President Levy Mwanawasa died of a stroke last month.

* He held many diplomatic posts, including that of Zambia's representative to the United Nations, before being made foreign minister in the 1970s in the administration of Zambia's first post-independence leader, Kenneth Kaunda. After his spell as foreign minister, Banda served as a parliamentarian between 1978 and 1988.

* Banda has a degree in economics and is also a prominent businessman. He is the owner of KB Davis, a firm that supplies mining equipment in the north-central Copperbelt region.

* After Mwanawasa fell out of favour with Zimbabwe's leader Robert Mugabe for calling Zimbabwe a "sinking Titanic" in 2007, it was Banda who was dispatched to Harare to smooth relations.

* Banda was born in Gwanda, in the south of what was then British-ruled Southern Rhodesia, now known as Zimbabwe.