Guy Scott takes interim role after Zambian president Sata’s death

Zambia has named Guy Scott as its interim president following the death of president Michael Sata at a hospital in the UK on Tuesday night.

Officials said Scott, who was vice-president, would take charge for three months until an election is held to choose a permanent successor. Scott, the white son of English and Scottish immigrants, cannot be a candidate under the existing constitution because his parents were not born in Zambia.

Scott is the first white person to lead a democratic country on the continental mainland; Paul Berénger was the prime minister of the island of Mauritius from 2003 to 2005.

“It’s a bit of a shock to the system, coupled with this news from London,” Scott, 70, said. “Everyone is getting used to calling me ‘Your Excellency’, and I’m getting used to it. There are truckloads of guys, police following me on motorbikes. It’s very strange but I’m very proud to be entrusted with it.”

Sata, who swept platforms at a British railway station before rising to the presidency, died aged 77 after a long and unspecified illness. Nicknamed King Cobra for his abrasive rhetoric, he enjoyed warm relations with president Robert Mugabe of neighbouring Zimbabwe and was accused by critics of autocratic tendencies.

Sata and Scott came to power in 2011. Scott’s race made him a rarity in post-colonial African politics. “There’s been no hint of any resentment of a white man being made vice-president,” the former farmer and agriculture minister said at the time.

“I have long suspected Zambia is moving from a post-colonial to a cosmopolitan condition.”

Fewer than 40,000 of Zambia’s 13 million-strong population are white. In another Guardian interview last year, Scott, whose wife is from Greenwich, south-east London, said: “[Sata] says things like: ‘What would you be if you weren’t white?’ I said: ‘The president?’ That shut him up.”

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Sata, a devout Catholic, was a former policeman, car assembly worker, trade unionist, taxidermist and platform sweeper at Victoria station in London. He had been a perennial opposition leader, losing three presidential votes, but finally became independent Zambia’s fifth president in 2011 against a backdrop of public anger at corruption and frustration among those yet to benefit from a copper mining boom.

He had run for election as one of the few African leaders apparently willing to stand up to China, describing the companies extracting Zambia’s natural resources as “infesters”. But he appeared to tone down the rhetoric once he was in power.

Sata was never one for diplomatic niceties. When a BBC journalist asked if he was losing an election in 2008, he snapped: “I haven’t bloody lost so don’t waste my time.” In 2012 Sata reportedly chided former US president George W Bush for arriving 15 minutes late for meeting, describing the 66-year-old as “the young man” and berating him about colonialism.

His government recently cracked down on political opponents and critical journalists who reported on his long-suspected illness and frequent “working trips” abroad, apparently for medical treatment.

Police arrested a human rights activist who appeared on live television calling for homosexuality to be decriminalised.

In January, an opposition politician was charged with defamation for comparing Sata with a local potato whose name is slang for someone who doesn’t listen, while in June the authorities charged three opposition activists for claiming that the president was dying. Sata also leaves behind a country where unemployment is about 60%.

The president had not been seen in public since returning last month from the UN general assembly, where he failed to make a scheduled speech and police said doctors treated him in a hotel room. But he made a rare appearance on 19 September to tell parliament: “I am not dead yet.”

Sata died just after 11pm on Tuesday in the private King Edward VII’s hospital in London. His wife, Christine Kaseba, and son Mulenga, were at his side. Sata and Kaseba had eight children.

Asked if Sata had chosen him as his successor, Scott said: “He would never be so polite as to do that. But he said he was happy that I was there, to take over if needed. I hadn’t spoken to him for some days. I won’t run for the presidency at the election because constitutionally, I can’t.”

A likely contender for the presidency is Edgar Lungu, the defence minister, who stood in recently as acting president.

Among those paying tribute was Rupiah Banda, Sata’s predecessor. “Michael Chilufya Sata was more than a public servant,” he said. “He was a passionate competitor, a man of conviction and determination. He was also a loving son, a husband, a father, and to me, despite everything we’ve been through, a friend. Above all, Michael Sata was a Zambian, in body, soul, and spirit.

“We have gone through this before as a country and we made it to the other side because we were united. Let this be a time that we set aside the ideas that separate us, and embrace the humanity and dignity that unites us as a country and defines us as a people.”

Mark Chona, former special assistant to Kenneth Kaunda, independent Zambia’s first president, said: “We are very devastated because he was a very hard working and committed president and leader. He was extremely passionate about anything he had decided to achieve.”

Sata had been forced to miss celebrations of Zambia’s 50th anniversary of independence from Britain last week. Chona added: “We are celebrating our golden jubilee and really wanted to focus on building a good structure for future generations, so this is a devastating blow to the country. But we have never known conflict and I believe Zambians will be united in taking the country forward.”

In a Guardian interview last year, Scott, a Cambridge-trained economist, ruffled diplomatic feathers by describing South Africans as “backward” and saying he hated them. But on Wednesday, the South African government, whose last white leader was FW de Klerk before democratic elections were held in 1994, issued a statement suggesting relations had moved on: “President Sata belongs to the generation of leaders produced by Zambia during the colonial times and gallantly pursued the anti-colonial struggle.

“His death reminds the people of South Africa of Zambia’s immeasurable sacrifice and the sterling leadership role that Zambia played in ridding the African continent of the yoke of colonial domination and apartheid rule.”

Uhuru Kenyatta, the president of Kenya, hailed Sata as an “outstanding son of Africa”, adding: “He was gifted with unique, admirable abilities and strong values.”

Philip Hammond, Britain’s foreign secretary, said: “[Sata] played a commanding role in the public life of his country over three decades, as governor of Lusaka, as the holder of several ministerial positions in the 1990s, as the main opposition leader, and finally as president.”