anglican.ink The former Bishop of Botswana has launched a long-shot bid to become president of Zambia under the banner of former President Kenneth Kauda’s UNIP party. If elected at the August general election, Bishop Mwamba will become the second Anglican cleric after the Rev. Wavel Ramkalawan of the Seychelles to lead an African nation. A Zambian national, Bishop Mwamba trained for the ministry in the UK and was ordained deacon by the Bishop of Kensington in 1984 and served his curacy at St Luke’s Chelsea and All Saints, Notting Hill. In 1985 he returned to Zambia and became rector Luanshya and vocations director for the diocese of Central Zambia. Elected Bishop of Botswana in 2015, he resigned in 2012 to take up the post of Team Rector of Barking and assistant bishop of Chelmsford. In December 2019 he resigned those posts after his wife, Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba was appointed Botswana’s Ambassador to Germany. He told reporters in Lusaka his United National Independence Party (UNIP) government would focus on integrity, social and economic welfare — placing the interests of the Zambian people at the centre of all government programs. The poverty which held Zambia firmly in its grip, despite being blessed with abundant natural resources, was due to a failure of leadership and of moral character. What was missing from the ruling government was the quality of love and social equality that had marked the rule of former president Kenneth Kaunda’s UNIP government.