Accident
Before his party's convention in 1990, Mwanawasa was widely tipped to become the President of the Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), but he declined the overture, citing his young age and inexperience. He opted instead to stand as a Member of Parliament and won with an overwhelming majority of the popular vote.
On 8 December 1991 Mwanawasa was involved in a serious traffic accident in which his aide died on the spot. He suffered multiple body injuries and was flown to Johannesburg, South Africa for medical treatment. He remained hospitalized for three months. A lasting effect of the accident was his noticeably slurred speech. A commission of inquiry was set up to investigate who was responsible for the alleged assassination attempt.
Read more about this topic: Levy Mwanawasa
Famous quotes containing the word accident:
“Thus he struggled, by every method, to keep his light shining before men. Surely the lighthouse-keeper has a responsible, if an easy, office. When his lamp goes out, he goes out; or, at most, only one such accident is pardoned.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“A President Roosevelt comes only once in a century. I believe God knew and does know of the need of the world at this moment. I don’t believe President Roosevelt is an accident in time, or that it is an accident that he is President for a third time. I believe that Franklin D. Roosevelt truly is the voice of liberty in the world.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“A sudden light transfigures a trivial thing, a weather-vane, a wind-mill, a winnowing flail, the dust in the barn door; a moment,—and the thing has vanished, because it was pure effect; but it leaves a relish behind it, a longing that the accident may happen again.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)