Anderson Mazoka

Mr Anderson Mazoka was born on 22 March 1943, in Monze, Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia).
Mr Mazoka attended Union College, in Schenectady, New York. He graduated in 1969 with a degree in mechanical engineering. For his senior thesis, Mazoka designed and built a wind tunnel in 10 weeks and for less than $100. The tunnel, whose construction attracted attention from the media, filled the basement of the college’s Science and Engineering. The college’s Science and Engineering department named it the “Mazoka Wind Tunnel” and used it for instructional purposes for more than 30 years.
Mr Mazoka loved to play sports. He distinguished himself as a soccer player at Union College. He worked summers at General Electric.
With his engineering degree and his Harvard University management diploma Mazoka entered the Zambian business community. In the 1970’s He served as director of Zambia Railways., the state railways, when Kenneth Kaunda was President of Zambia.
He later worked for Anglo-America Corp., a mining and general resources company, for eighteen years – the last ten as general manager of the Central African division. He also once headed the Zambian Tourism Bureau. His notable tourism influence was reaching an agreement with a South African hotel chain to turn the Ridgeway Hotel in Lusaka into Holiday Inn.
Mazoka was one of the founders of President Frederick Chiluba’s party, the Movement for Multi Party Democracy (MMD). It rallied to beat President Kaunda’s ruling United National Independence Party (UNIP) in 1991.
Anderson Mazoka was a skillful and popular politician in his leadership of the United Party for National Development (UPND). He led the party to be Zambia’s main opposition party in a few years of his leadership. One can speculate that he would have captured the next election if he had not died.
Mr Mazoka died of kidney complications in Johannesburg, South Africa on 24 May 2006. He was 63 years old. He was succeeded in the UPND by Hakainde Hichilema. He was married to Christine Mutinta and had four children Macenje, Mutinta, Pasina and Anderson Jr.
“May his soul rest in peace?”