Guy Scott

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Guy Lindsay Scott (born 1 June 1944) is a Zambian politician who served as the acting President of Zambia from October 2014 to January 2015, as the 12th Vice President of Zambia from 2011 to 2014.

Following Michael Sata's death in office on October 28, Scott was named acting President.

He was Zambia's first white president and the first white president in sub-Saharan Africa after F. W. de Klerk, South Africa's last apartheid-era president, resigned in 1994.

Early life and education

Guy Lindsay Scott was born on June 1st, 1944, in the border city of Livingstone, the pre-1935 capital of what was then Northern Rhodesia (today Zambia). Alec Scott, his father, migrated to Northern Rhodesia in 1927 from Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom, to work on Cecil Rhodes' railways, but his mother Grace moved from England in 1940. Scott is the brother of Alexander "Sandy" Scott, a noted scientist who was honoured the Beverton Medal by the Fisheries Society of the British Isles in 2014 for his contributions to fisheries research. His father, who served as a member of parliament for the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, ruled Lusaka as an Independent during the 1950s. Scott's eventual participation in politics was largely inspired by his father, who had been a mentor of Zambian nationalists and had even founded several newspapers that argued for independence.

Scott obtained his primary and secondary education at Springvale School and Peterhouse Boys' School, respectively, both located in what was then Southern Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe). He continued his education in England, where he received his undergraduate degree in economics in 1965 from Trinity Hall, a constituent college of Cambridge University. Scott then returned home to join the government of newly independent Zambia, in which he served as a planner within the Ministry of Finance. He was also the deputy editor of a newspaper named The Business and Economy of East and Central Africa at this time.

Scott founded Walkover Estates in 1970, which concentrated on growing high-value crops such as irrigated wheat, strawberries, and a variety of off-season vegetables. Walkover Estates' strawberries were often included in local Sainsbury's supermarkets. During this period, Scott was regarded as a model employer who spoke in the local language and was known for his inclusive activities.

Scott later returned to England to continue his studies at the University of Sussex, where he concentrated on cognitive sciences and artificial intelligence. "Local and global interpretation of moving pictures," his doctoral thesis was entitled "Local and global interpretation of moving images." He went on to study robotics at Oxford University.

Personal life

Charlotte Harland Scott, a British-born doctor, married Scott in a 1996 ceremony at the Lusaka Civic Centre. They currently live in Lusaka. Scott has Parkinson's disease.

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Political career

At the first party convention in 1990, Scott joined the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) and was elected Chair of the Agriculture Committee.

He was elected as a Member of Parliament for Mpika Central on the MMD ticket in the 1991 general election and later appointed Minister of Agriculture, Food, and Fisheries. He presided over a number of policy reforms and was responsible for directing the "drought of the century" in January and February 1992. There was no reserve maize in Zambia and none in southern Africa, so emergency plans had to obtain it from abroad and move it into Zambia on dilapidated rail and road networks. He also oversaw the 1992-93 drought revival "bumper harvest." However, he was dismissed by President Chiluba on April 15, 1993.

Scott resigned from MMD to join the Lima Party alongside Ben Kapita, the ZNFU's president. He supervised the fusion of the Lima Party and other groups, including Dean Mungomba's Zambia Democratic Congress, into the Zambia Alliance for Progress. He returned to politics and joined the Patriotic Front in 2001 after being elected in the National Assembly after being elected MP for Lusaka Central in the 2006 general election.

On September 20, 2011, a presidential election was held on September 20th, 2011, with final findings revealed on September 23, 2011, the Patriotic Front's presidential candidate, Michael Sata, defeating MMD's Rupiah Banda by a wide margin. On September 29, 2011, Scott was sworn in as Vice President of the Republic of Zambia, the country's first white Zambian leader since independence.

Scott was quoted in The Guardian shortly after his election as saying: "I have long feared Zambia is transitioning from a post-colonial to a cosmopolitan state." People's minds are shifting: they are no longer sitting around and worrying about what was wrong with colonialism. "When they introduced me as Vice President, he thought they were kidding," referring to a 2012 meeting with former US President George W. Bush (who funds various charitable causes in Zambia).

Following Michael Sata's death on October 28, 2014, Scott became acting president for a short period of no more than 90 days until a new election could be called to permanently fill the position, as required by Article 38 of Zambia's Constitution.

Since Article 34 of the Constitution of Zambia stipulates that both parents of presidential candidates are "Zambian by birth or descent," Scott was deemed ineligible to run in the 2016 election. President Frederick Chiluba had ruled that the clause had been enacted to prevent Kenneth Kaunda, the father of his father, who was born in what became Malawi, from being president. However, a recent decision by the Zambian Supreme Court in a related case in 1998 may have affirmed him as a potential candidate. Nonetheless, Scott did not stand out as the presidential nominee for his political party, the Patriotic Front.

Scott dismissed Edgar Lungu as the Patriotic Front's Secretary General on November 3, 2014, but he returned him the next day, after street demonstrations in Lusaka. Scott dismissed calls from cabinet members urging him to resign as acting president on December 17, 2014.

Lungu, the PF's candidate, won the presidential by-election in January 2015 and succeeded Scott as Zambia's 6th president on January 25, 2015.

Until the 2016 general election, Scott left the PF. He joined the United Party for National Development in 2021.

Adventures in Zambian Politics: A Novel in Black and White, a book about both the past and his own political career, published in 2019.

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