Zambia's Scott becomes Africa's first white leader in 20 years

Zambia's Vice President Guy Scott (L) listens as U.S. President Barack Obama (not pictured) speaks, at the first Leaders' Session of the U.S.-Africa Leaders Summit, at the State Department in Washington, in this August 6, 2014 file picture. REUTERS/Larry Downing/Files

LUSAKA (Reuters) - Zambia's Guy Scott became Africa's first white head of state in 20 years on Wednesday after the president, "King Cobra" Michael Sata, died in a London hospital aged 77.

Scott, a Cambridge-educated economist born in Zambia to Scottish parents, had been Sata's vice president. He will be interim leader until an election in three months, making him the first white African leader since South Africa's F.W. de Klerk lost to Nelson Mandela in the 1994 election that ended apartheid.