Constitutional crisis looms in Zambia

| Friday September 10, 2010 00:00

It was one deadline met  in a number that must be met to pave way for the 2011 general  elections when President Rupiah Banda will be seeking his first five-year term.

The deadline may have been met but a constitutional crisis is looming because consensus remains elusive.  There is still a great deal of uncertainty  and suspicions over the enactment process.

Government has said  that all the articles enshrined in the final draft will be enacted.

But there are lingering suspicions that the ruling party may as in the past use its majority now more commonly referred to as the “arrogance of numbers” in the National Assembly to  change some provisions  to suit itself! That is what has distorted past constitutions and it can hardly have been reassuring that government had first sight  of the draft. Many would have preferred that it be immediately tabled  in the National Assembly for enactment. Lingering fears of history repeating itself remain. 

On another level, there are still many voices raised and some quite strident in opposition to both the  draft and the process by which it was delivered.

The disquiet is real and is unlikely to fizzle out any time soon. On the very day that the draft was  submitted for instance, there was published a petition, the product  of canvassing by some civil society organizations entitled; “The people  of Zambia speak out on the NCC draft  constitution.”   It denounced the draft as no more than a rehash of former president Kenneth Kaunda’s one-party state constitution.

The petition took issue with what it said was the failure by the NCC to heed the people’s call to repeal the old constitution and draw up a new blueprint, reflecting the country’s new situation as a multi-party democracy.

“The people of Zambia through the constitution commission clearly stated that the current constitution  should be repealed and replaced.

However, the NCC has found it appropriate to do away with many provisions of the draft drawn up by  commission that are multi-party in character and has opted to maintain the one-party provisions,” it charged.

It went on to list “critical” provisions that it demanded to be incorporated into the new constitution before the 2011 elections.

Among them, that presidential candidates must secure more than 50 percent of the votes cast to be elected; that to allow for electoral petitions and a smooth handover, the president-elect should only assume office 90 days after the election and that the Vice-President must be elected and not appointed by the president.

Further, that to strengthen the separation of powers, ministers should be appointed from outside the National Assembly,  that the constitution must empower the electorate to recall non-performing  MPs and there should be no nominated members of the national assembly while mayors and local council chairmen should be elected directly by  residents.

It also demanded that the Bill of Rights should be amended to include social, economic and cultural rights and that these amendments should be effected immediately after the elections.

The core argument remains that there should be no diversion from what the people submitted to the 2005 Constitution Review Commission. The thrust is to deny the ruling party and the executive space for the manoeuvres of the past.

The NCC is seen as having failed since it was empowered to add, subtract or re-write the provisions of the draft drawn up by the commission.

For that reason, the petition chides the NCC for referring the question of the mode of election of the president to a national referendum because the people have overwhelmingly said it should be so to three constitution review commissions and one electoral reform committee.

“How should the NCC decide to refer the matter to a referendum when the people of Zambia’s desires has been consistent?

The petition further assailed the NCC as an expensive failure; a waste of time and resources. Since 2007 when it started sittings the NCC process has cost the taxpayer at least K136 billion.

“The amount money so far spent on the NCC would have been meaningfully used to improve the living standards of ordinary people... It is only achievement has been to delay the attainment of a totally new and acceptable constitution before the 2011 presidential and parliamentary elections,” it further charged.

Further, the Council of Churches in  Zambia (CCZ), the umbrella organisation of protestant churches was equally scathing in its reaction to the draft. Describing it as “leaving too  much to be desired “and as   “not reflecting the aspirations of the people,” it called for an outright rejection of it.

“We  wish to recommend that the NCC Draft Constitution be rejected without  reservations due to the flawed process; that the proposed piecemeal amendments to the current constitution that seeks to ensure their (politicians) continued stay in power be rejected; and that in the likely event that the government and politicians will use their arrogance of numbers to push through this flawed Constitution, the least they can do is refer the whole NCC Draft Constitution to the Referendum for the people to  decide.”

This was in addition to the earlier  stinging and outspoken criticism of the draft constitution by the influential Catholic Bishops of Zambia. 

So, while the constitution-making process  has taken a step forward with the submission of the final draft, a great deal of opposition remains. Whether the process will go forward without any attempts to accommodate the dissenting voices is at this stage an  open question. (Sila Press Agency)