Zambian parties gear up for polls

LUSAKA, Zambia (Reuters) -- Zambia's newest opposition party, the Forum for Democracy and Development (FDD), goes to the polls on Friday to adopt a presidential candidate for general elections due later this year.

FDD officials and diplomats said former vice-president General Christon Tembo, 57, has emerged the leading candidate for the job of FDD president and an automatic run for the country's presidency.

But Tembo will have to scrap it out with two other candidates at the three-day FDD convention being held in the capital Lusaka.

These are former legal affairs minister Vincent Malambo and former health minister Boniface Kawimbe.

"We have prepared enough and all that is remaining is for me to scoop the presidency for the FDD. I am the right man to take this task of leading FDD to govern Zambia," Tembo told Reuters at the start of the FDD meeting.

Tembo and other senior cabinet ministers led a surprise revolt against president Frederick Chiluba's bid to extend his rule beyond the legal two-term limit.

Chiluba threw Zambia into political turmoil in April after senior party members led by Tembo opposed his bid for a third, unconstitutional term.

Chiluba only backed down after Tembo and eight other ministers led a full-scale revolt, quit his ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) party and organised protest rallies across the copper-rich nation.

In August, Chiluba's ruling party named a prominent lawyer, Levy Mwanawasa as its candidate for the upcoming elections.

But analysts see Tembo, a tough-talking and popular former commander of Zambia's army, as favourite because he emerged as the guardian of Zambia's fragile democracy when he prevented Chiluba from seeking a third term.

Tembo's FDD now poses the biggest threat to the MMD's 10-year hold on power.