Levy Mwanawasa, Zambia’s new president, has big plans for his time in office, and no one is finding that harder to swallow than the man who put him there, his predecessor, Frederick Chiluba.

After 10 years in office and an aborted effort to stay on beyond the constitutional limit, Mr. Chiluba chose Mr. Mwanawasa to be their party’s candidate last year, apparently confident that his chosen successor would safeguard the darkest secrets of a government that, by many accounts, stole with little fear and even less shame.

Following recent revelations about state payments and allegations of other corruption, no one — and certainly not Mr. Chiluba — thinks secrets are safe anymore. With the new president pushing Parliament to lift Mr. Chiluba’s immunity from prosecution, the coming months could land Mr. Chiluba in court and perhaps even in prison.

With his crackdown, Mr. Mwanawasa has managed to dodge some of the questions about his own election, winning applause from observers who had questioned the legitimacy of his victory and from skeptical voters who had predicted he would be Mr. Chiluba’s puppet.

Zambia is among the world’s most corrupt countries, according to Transparency International, an advocacy group that tracks corruption worldwide. As the link between corruption and poverty grows clearer, citizens appear to be insisting on greater accountability.

“Our people have woken up to the fact that it is their responsibility to improve their lot,” said Mutembo Nchito, a 33-year-old lawyer who has emerged as a champion of cleaner government. “I think it’s really re-ignited a sense of patriotism. We’re ashamed of the way the country was plundered, but we’re really proud of the way we’re handling it.”

Even the initial snipes about the mental fitness of Mr. Mwanawasa, who was being called “The Cabbage” on account of his deliberate speaking style, have subsided as the nation has warmed to his hard-charging agenda.

But he is also rousing anger among powerful people, who contend that he is setting up his own downfall. Cryptic talk of a plot to unseat him or even assassinate him is popping up, most of it from the state news outlets that he controls.

“I am not targeting anybody,” he said in an interview at State House, the presidential residence and office. “I am not witch hunting. This is not a war by one individual. This is not a war by Levy Mwanawasa. The people of Zambia have said no.”

Yet, Mr. Mwanawasa’s campaign against corruption is very much playing out as a duel between the two men, and so far Mr. Mwanawasa is scoring all the points.

In the most remarkable turn so far, Mr. Chiluba’s spymaster, Xavier Chungu, was arrested in June and charged with using an intelligence agency bank account in London to funnel secret payments that reached people ranging from Mr. Chiluba’s children to Zambia’s ambassador to the United States, Atan Shansonga, who was summoned back to Lusaka, the capital, and arrested.

The bank account was brought to light in June by Mr. Nchito, who is defending two local journalists and two legislators against charges that they defamed the president last year when they called Mr. Chiluba a thief. Details of the many transactions, which were among records released by Mr. Mwanawasa’s government after Mr. Nchito’s petition, are still emerging. Some payments could turn out to be aboveboard, but the fallout already suggests otherwise.

The country’s chief justice, suspected of receiving $168,000, has stepped down. So has the foreign minister, Katele Kalumba, who was Mr. Chiluba’s finance minister and who was suspected of receiving several thousand dollars from the account. Mr. Kalumba disappeared and was rumored to have killed himself.

With crowds of demonstrators urging members on, Parliament took up President Mwanawasa’s call to lift Mr. Chiluba’s immunity. Mr. Chiluba’s lawyers quickly brought an appeal before the High Court, and Parliament’s vote was stayed. A hearing on the matter is scheduled for today.

Each day brings another twist. Perhaps hoping to balance tough talk with magnanimity, Mr. Mwanawasa raised the possibility of pardoning Mr. Chiluba — if he returns the money he is said to have stolen.

Mr. Chiluba, a trade union leader who helped found the Movement for Multiparty Democracy, came to power in 1991, ending 27 years of authoritarian, largely one-party rule under the independence hero, Kenneth Kaunda. Mr. Mwanawasa, another founder of the party, was vice president until 1994, when he quit , saying he was disgusted with his party’s unabashed corruption.

Plucked back into politics from the private law practice to which he had retreated, he seemed a shrewd, if unlikely, choice to be the party’s candidate in last December’s elections. Party leaders reasoned that his long absence from government would would spare him the taint of corruption, while his long association with the party would ensure loyalty.

“It was a mistake, it seems,” Mr. Chiluba said in an interview at his home here in Lusaka when asked about his decision to nominate Mr. Mwanawasa. “I am disappointed. I had a lot of faith in my brother Levy Mwanawasa, and he has let me down greatly, I must say.”

A lay minister, Mr. Chiluba said that he was not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing as president and that the questions in recent months could have been resolved quietly.

Mr. Chiluba said: “I think decency would have demanded that the president comes to me and says, `What have you done, my brother? Can you explain?’ If I fail, indeed, he is the head of state and he can say then, `I don’t brook this nonsense.’ “But none of this has ever happened,” he continued. “I’m wading from one accusation to another, from one indictment to another, and it’s becoming a little hard to bear.”

Mr. Mwanawasa is unmoved by his predecessor’s complaints. “Now he feels betrayed by the fact that we have revealed what appears to be plunder?” Mr. Mwanawasa said. “I don’t feel I betrayed him. I would have betrayed the people of Zambia if I did not disclose this.”

Whatever the scheme, the plundering of places like Zambia ultimately deprives poor people of the most basic human needs, like nutritious food, while enriching a tiny elite.

Years of watching such coteries act with impunity have imbued even the poor with a warped sense of entitlement, said Bradford Malumbe, the chief of operations for the country’s anti-corruption commission. Stealing something as ordinary as a fuse from a traffic light is condoned by the community, he said. “We are working very hard with civil society to get the message across that what you see out there belongs to you not as an individual but as a society,” he said.

Nothing will do that more effectively, said Mr. Nchito, the lawyer, than a successful prosecution of Mr. Chiluba. “That will burn the rule of law onto the consciences of our people, and no one will be able to reverse it.”

Henri E. Cauvin, New York Times, August 9, 2002