The First UPND President
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Mr Anderson Mazoka was born on 22 March 1943 in Monze, Zambia.
He attended Union College, in Schenectady, New York and graduated in 1969 with a degree in mechanical engineering. For his senior thesis Mazoka designed and built a wind tunnel in ten 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 department which called named it the “Mazoka Wind Tunnel” and used it for instructional purposes for more than 30 years.
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-American, 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 skilful and popular politician in his leadership of the United Party for National Development (UPND). He very quickly established the UPND as Zambia’s main opposition party, coming a close second to President Levy Mwanawasa in the 2001 elections.
Mazoka died of kidney complications in Johannesburg, South Africa, on 24 May 2006. He was married to Christine Mutinta and had four children Macenje, Mutinta, Pasina and Anderson Jr.
May His Soul Rest In Peace.
