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Dr Guy Scott (geboren am 1 Juni 1944) ist ein zambischer Politiker und derzeitiger Vizepraesident von Zambia.

Family and early life

Scott wurde als Sohn britischer Immigranten in Livingstone geboren. Sein Vater, urspruenglich aus Glasgow, emigrierte 1927 und arbeitete zunechst als Arzt. Seine Mutter zog 1940 von Englan nach Zambia..

Scott completed his education in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and the United Kingdom at Cambridge University and the University of Sussex, where he obtained a degree in economics and a PhD in cognitive science respectively. His participation in Zambian politics was inspired by his late father who was an ally of Zambian nationalists and a founder of anti-colonial government newspapers including the African Mail, now the Zambia Daily Mail. During the 1950s, his father was a member of the federal parliament for Lusaka, standing on an independent ticket.

He is married and currently resides in Lusaka.

Professional Achievements

After graduating from Trinity Hall, Cambridge in 1965, Scott joined the government of the Republic of Zambia where he served in the Ministry of Finance as a planner. He was also the deputy editor of the Business and Economy of East and Central Africa during this period.

In 1970, Scott left the government to become an entrepreneur and set up Walkover Estates, an agribusiness venture, which ventured into high value crops such as irrigated wheat, strawberries, and a wide range off season vegetables. In 1978, he co-founded the Mpongwe Development Company alongside with the Commonwealth Development Corporation. He then went on to engage in lecturing and research in robotics at Oxford University during the 1980s.

Political career

In 1990, Scott joined active politics and joined the Movement for Multi-Party Democracy (MMD) where he was elected to serve as Chair of the agriculture committee at the first convention.

Scott was nominated as an MMD candidate for Mpika in the National Assembly during the 1991 general election. He was elected and subsequently appointed as Minister of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries. He presided over a number of policy reforms and was responsible for managing the very dangerous food situation that developed after the “drought of the century” in January and February 1992. There was no reserve maize in Zambia and none in southern Africa, so emergency arrangements had to be made to import it from overseas and move it into Zambia on dilapidated rail and road networks. He also oversaw the drought recovery “bumper harvest” of 1992/93.

In 1996, Scott resigned from the MMD to form the Lima Party together with Ben Kapita, the then-president of the ZNFU. He piloted the merger between the Lima Party and other parties including Dean Mungomba's ZADECO to form ZAP. However, he later left ZAP and concentrated on his agricultural consultancy company. In 2001, he joined the Patriotic Front and returned to politics. He returned to the National Assembly when he was elected as the member for Lusaka Central in the 2006 general election. Guy Scott also rose to the position of Vice President of the Patriotic Front.

Vice President

The Zambian Presidential elections were held on 20 September 2011 and final results released on 23 September 2011, showed the Patriotic Front's presidential candidate, Michael Sata, winning by receiving about 43% of the vote against 36% for the incumbent president, MMD's Rupiah Banda. Guy Scott was consequently sworn in as Vice President of the Republic on 29 September 2011. This is the first time in independent Africa that a white man has occupied such high office.

Shortly after his election, the Guardian quoted Scott as saying: "I have long suspected Zambia is moving from a post-colonial to a cosmopolitan condition. People's minds are changing: they are no longer sitting back and dwelling on what was wrong about a colonialism." Of his recent introduction to former US President George W. Bush (who was passing through Zambia) he said, "when they introduced me as vice president, he thought they were kidding".