Elected in a by-election to replace president Levy Mwanawasa who died after suffering a stroke in August 2008, Banda will in 2011 be seeking re-election, which will qualify him for his first five-year term in office. But in a move that is sure to reopen old wounds between the church and the state, Catholic prelates have rejected the new constitution on the ground that it is not people-driven and cannot stand the test of time. They say that the National Constitutional Conference (NCC), which had been tasked with coming up with the constitution, had "failed to meet the aspirations of the Zambian people".
In a bid to reduce, among other things, the powers of a sitting president, Zambia has been bogged down in unsuccessful constitution-making process since the end of Kenneth Kaunda's one-party rule in 1991. The products of two previous attempts to come up with an acceptable blueprint have been unsatisfactory. The last in 1996 must rank as a monumental failure, because government threw out more than 50 percent of the recommendations. The latest draft released in late June is the product of a process that had been on going since 2007.
