AFRICA : Zambian Identity Crisis: Is President an Impostor?

During his 27 years as Zambia’s undisputed strongman, Kenneth D. Kaunda turned one of post-colonial Africa’s most prosperous nations into an economic and political basket case.

Under Frederick Chiluba--elected president in 1991 in the country’s first democratic polls--the political situation in Zambia appears to be turning toward farce.

In recent months, the country’s largest independent newspaper, the Post, has detailed bizarre revelations about Chiluba. The government has denied the allegations, slapped the paper with about 40 lawsuits and repeatedly tossed its editor in jail.

But those actions have not stopped the presses or the growing speculation that Chiluba is not who he claims to be. Fred M’membe, the crusading weekly’s soft-spoken editor, said, “I think citizens have a right to know where the president comes from.”

And the president’s real name. The Post says the 50-year-old president is really Titus Mpundu, born of an extramarital affair in neighboring Zaire, not Zambia. They cite a surprising source: the president’s supposedly deceased father.

“I want Zambia to know that Chiluba’s father is not dead. I am alive, and I am here,” farmer Luka Chabala Kafupi, 76, told the Post recently. Photos showed a striking resemblance between the two men.

The Post then checked other elements of Chiluba’s curriculum vitae. It reported that young Titus Mpundu was expelled from grammar school and that, far from holding the university degree the president claims to have, he flunked out of junior high. The paper alleged that he “borrowed” a degree from a school friend, Frederick M. Chiluba. Later, it said, he took Chiluba’s name as well.

Even Chiluba’s aides took aim at him: The legal affairs minister, after being fired last year, announced that the president smokes pot.

The president has denied all charges.

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Ironically, the paper’s probe of the president’s past was precipitated by the government’s crude attempts to prevent Kaunda, now 71, from launching a rematch against Chiluba in national elections in October, 1996.

The government proposed amending the draft constitution to bar presidential candidates whose parents are not Zambian; Kaunda’s parents were from neighboring Malawi.

The government also has arrested Kaunda twice for addressing rallies without a permit. Kaunda’s aides insist such bullying only helps his prospects for a political comeback. Explained Rupiah Banda, Kaunda’s confidante and former foreign minister: “People want us to bring back the good old days.”