a meeting in State House at which President Kaunda agreed to consider their proposals. However, later he banned the Committee of 14 and this action was followed by the suspension of Sylvester Chisembele and several leaders were sacked. Chisembele later rejoined the Cabinet as Minister for Eastern Province and two years later in 1977 he was transferred in the same position to the Copperbelt Province, where the political situation was tense, especially so because of the forthcoming General Elections. Simon M. Kapwepwe and Harry Mwaanga Nkumbula, who, before the declaration of a One Party State, had been leaders of the UPP and ANC political parties respectively, had joined UNIP with the intention of challenging for the Presidency. However, their attempt to challenge President Kaunda for the Presidency on the UNIP ticket failed as both were prevented and disqualified by the manipulations of President Kaunda, who stood unopposed. Simon Kapwepwe and Harry Nkumbula challenged the resultant 1978 election of President Kaunda in the High Court, but unsurprisingly their action was unsuccessful. The economy and the copper crisis After independence, Zambia adopted a left-wing economic policy. The economy was, to some extent, run by central planning under five year plans. Private companies were nationalised and incorporated into large state-owned conglomerates. The government's goal was to be self-sufficient, which it sought to achieve through import substitution. At first, the plan worked and the economy grew steadily. However, in the mid-1970s, the economy started to decline drastically. During the period between 1975 and 1990 Zambia's economy dropped by approximately 30%. To deal with the crisis, Zambia took big loans from the International Monetary Fund and the Worldbank hoping that copper prices would rise again soon, instead of issuing structural reforms. Foreign policy Internationally, Zambia's sympathies lay with forces opposing colonial or white-dominated rule. During the next decade, it actively supported movements such as the National Unions for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) under the independence war and under the subsequent civil war, the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU) in Southern Rhodesia, and the African National Congress (ANC) in their struggle against apartheid in the Republic of South Africa, and the South-West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) in their struggle for independence for Namibia. Zambia also hosted some of the movements. For instance, the ANC exile headquarters were in Lusaka, and ZAPU had a military base in Zambia. This resulted in security problems, as the