Zambian president declares state of emergency 'to safeguard investments'
'Parliament will within the next seven days determine whether it will be there for one week, one month, three months or six months'
Zambian President Edgar Lungu said on Thursday he had invoked emergency powers to deal with "acts of sabotage" by his political opponents, after fire gutted the country's biggest market. The main opposition party said his use of emergency powers was unnecessary and was a ploy to make it easier for police to arrest its supporters. Lungu said the measure would safeguard investments in the country, which is Africa's second-biggest copper producer and is currently in talks with the International Monetary Fund over a financial aid package. He said the IMF was free to terminate the negotiations if it considered his actions wrong. Political tensions in Zambia, seen as one of Africa's more stable and functional democracies, have been rising since the arrest on treason charges of main opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema in April. He narrowly lost to Lungu in a bruising election last year. "This power (state of emergency) I have invoked is only for seven days," Lungu said, a day after saying...
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