Friday, March 29, 2024

Sinkamba Calls for Immediate Amendment of Constitution to put a Moratorium on Bye-Elections

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Police Officers ambush a UPND rally in Sesheke

Green Party President Peter Sinkamba says Government should consider tabling a motion in parliament either this session or the next to put a moratorium on elections until 2021.

Reacting to the bloody violent scenes shown in some sections of the media connected to the PF, UPND and the Police, Mr. Sinkamba said politics of violence is politics of poverty which should be nipped in the bud.

“It is so disgusting to see those violent bloody scenes in some sections of the media connected to the PF, UPND and the Police. Politics of violence is politics of poverty. It should be nipped in the bud. That’s why we call upon the PF Government to consider tabling a motion in parliament either this session or the next one to put a moratorium to by-elections until 2021,” he said.

“First of all, since the advent of multi-party politics in 1990s, bye-elections have largely been extremely violent compared to General Elections. This is evidence enough that bye-elections are undesirable in our nation. In life, there must come a time for one to say, enough is enough and change strategy. I think time has come to say bye-bye to bye-elections. Let’s close this chapter and move on. After all, there is only two years remaining before the 2021 General Elections. So, even if a vacancy falls in parliament or council, there is nothing really tangible that you should expect the person elected in the remaining period which will add value to the electorates. I don’t think that any drop of blood is worth shedding for such a worthless opportunity,” Mr. Sinkamba said.

And Mr. Sinkamba says parties must spend their energies to showcase grand ideas which could turn around the economy of Zambia and uplift the poor majority from the jaws of poverty.

“Instead of spending our energies on shedding blood of our fellow Zambians, let’s dedicate that energy towards generating ideas that could turn around the economy of Zambia and uplift the poor majority from jaws of poverty. Let’s showcase our party ideas. Let’s show how our ideas are better than PF’s policies and strategies. Lets fight intellectually not through pangas and guns. Let’s be a beacon of civility in the sub-region and we can demonstrate civility if only we fight and triumph intellectually and not shedding blood,” Mr. Sinkamba said.

Meanwhile, Mr. Sinkamba says if Finance Minister Margret Mwanakatwe clinches an IMF bailout package, the most likely scenario is that ZESCO will be privatized.

He said that when a country borrows from the IMF, its government agrees to adjust its economic policies to overcome the problems that led it to seek financial aid from the international community.

“The IMF works with a letter of intent written by the government receiving the programme. This letter requires prior actions, quantitative performance criteria, and structural benchmarks to be approved the IMF Board. The first two are not particularly controversial. However, structural benchmarks do contain a lot of sensitive structural economic reforms, often leading privatization, labour reform, etc.

“Since a significant component of Government indebtedness is a result of loans to ZESCO, privatization of ZESCO is likely to be part and parcel of the letter of intent. I see no way that Government will demonstrate to IMF how it will overcome the ZESCO debt besides privatization.

“Besides privatization, the IMF alternative is reducing or removing subsidies and increasing the price of utilities. Such measures seek to boost government revenue and raise export earnings by making the country’s products cheaper, while raising the prices of imports. This strategy is unlikely is no option for Zambia at the moments because power in this country is already too expensive. Therefore, increasing power any further will only result into crippling the economy. So this strategy is unlikely to be a preferred option,” he added.

He urged the Finance Minister to focus more on domestic resource mobilization, especially considering the green agenda of legalization of cannabis for medicinal and industrial purposes. He also advised the Minister to consider Green Party public asset optimization strategies especially getting rid of toxic assets.

11 COMMENTS

  1. I agree with Mr Sinkamba. A poor country like Zambia should not even be wasting money on bye-elections not to mention Zambian voters are fatigued by going to the polls unnecessarily. What needs to happen when a party loses a seat through death, defection or expulsion, is to appoint a new representative by that party to finish the term.

    • What’s do you replace bye elections with if you abolish them? The urge to embrace your call seem irresistible going by recent and historical bye election records but you gotta have a unanimously acceptable replacement. You Sinkamba, have no MP in parley and so you can put up your argument easily. Maybe we need to benchmark from what progressive countries have done. I think it’s a matter of civility. It is the democracy we signed up to. With bye elections parties with fewer representation in parley have a chance to increase. Bye elections are democratic and extravagant at the sametime. Haven’t they gotten bloodier with mapatizya formulae? Who coined that term?

    • Increased civil education can foster the much needed civil behavior.
      If you say, let the number 2 from the general election takeover, you will be creating a new set of problems just like when you say let the party which holds the seat to nominate someone from their party. You don’t want the fainthearted killing each other for parley gratuities. But since we deal with numbers in parliament coupling that to the need for electorates to redeem themselves from non performing character, bye elections also act a ” recall” mechanisms when the unfortunate call knocks. As for IMF vis Zesco, you know better that we have a nasty experience with the dollar they give you. Misery. SAPs in Zambia have been a mess. Made some goons so corruptly rich to want to rule over us.

    • The replacement for bye-elections is party lists. Parties must submit lists of their preferred candidates in order of priority. The first one becomes MP or councillor when seats are declared by the electoral commission. If they die, resign or seat becomes vacant for whatever reason, next person of the list takes over. This is what happens in most countries including South Africa. Such was proposed in the 2014 Draft Constitution. This should be the way to go. Bye elections are not only expensive for the State but also extremely divisive and root cause of violence

    • Why beat about the bush? We all know that PF is solely responsible for political violence because they have nothing to show for their cruel leadership apart from grand corruption and intimidation of the opposition.

      This is explained by the way PF has now resorted to using cadres in police uniform to force people out of their homes to attend Lungus rallies. How shameful!

      The solution here is to ban bye-elections and replace them with a system where by party that holds the seat holds internal elections to choose the successor.

      I think PF and Lungu should be booted out for Zambia to return to normality.

  2. Says a man who has no Parliamentary representation, and expects these Pharaoh Family members to vote for such ,which Pestilence Family MP would support that suggestion?

  3. Violent PF cadres imported from Lusaka masquerading in Zambia police uniforms gassing and harassing poor and peaceful Sesheke residents. People in Sesheke are in shock what’s befallen on them.

  4. Its simple
    We as a country should try building on what Mr Sinkamba has suggested,lets do proportional representation at parliamentary level, say in a general election if a party gets 45 % then that should be 45% of the total seats in paliament i think the quality of debate will improve as parties will carefully select quality representation then as for local government maybe we do 2 year or 2 and a half year terms.

  5. For sack of peace let all political parties stop the importation of people to areas where there are bye elections or election. If movements can be stopped to areas holding elections the better. We can’t be losing lives just for few selfish individuals. Enough is enough. We are Zambians ,let’s live in harmony

  6. By we are a democracy measure to provide for change in an emergency. So they must stay. It’s the violence created by add d that’s the problem.

    Revert to one party state to centre people around one party based o. Agreeing their mandate via election box. Multiparty is a white man’s con on tribal Africa. They want to divide and rule over Africa while you panga each other, connecting loaning conditions to ensure discord. No, what is needed is the banning b of violent opposition party s like UPND.

  7. No beating about the busy, just tell the ruling party to stop their violent acts. They are the ones controlling the police. You saw Kampyongo’s statements yesterday no difference from Hitler, issuing threats after threats that man is a danger to our country just like Chiwenga in Zimbabwe. Peter should be condemning Lungu for sending armed police to ambush defenseless citizens and going to pretend like he is a good man at AU. Typical hypocrite inviting outside to talk meanwhile you can’t talk to your fellow citizens on the other side

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