By Chanda Chisala
I must confess that I was very optimistic when President Hichilema and his UPND won the 2021 elections because the insanity of party cadres becoming lawless with impunity became extremely annoying . All the good achievements of President Lungu were overshadowed by the Patriotic Front’s failure to get such thuggery under control. The PF leadership just ignored the loud complaints about this disturbing anarchy, and they paid the price for it. Of course, once they lost the elections, they suddenly saw the light and came back to Jesus!
The UPND government has now inherited that same tone deafness from their predecessors, albeit in a different direction. Their stubbornness to push through a constitutional amendment process without regard to any reasonable dissent (from the Law Association of Zambia, civic society, churches, traditional chiefs etc) is extremely disappointing. When they are advised that it’s unwise to conduct this process at this late hour as a contentious electoral season dawns, their army of social media supporters simply repeat the same talking points: “what don’t you like about this Bill? Why don’t you just propose your changes?”
This is a classic definition of political tone deafness. You can’t hear what the heart of the major complaint is: it’s the fact that we have a history of politicians tinkering with the constitution with nefarious motives of unethically helping themselves in elections, which is why we prefer it not done just before general elections. Even if we can’t show you what is wrong with the amendments, the fact is that we do not trust you to do this process without electoral or other selfish political motives. It’s nothing personal; we would not trust UNIP, MMD or PF either because they are all politicians and politicians all over the world have the incurable habit of using anything to entrench their power, especially when they have not fulfilled their major promises.
What is worse is that we can even already see worrying evidence of this political intrigue. You claim that one of the main reasons you are rushing through this Amendment Bill is because you desperately want to bring many more women and youth into government. However, as many people have pointed out, why didn’t you already elevate a large number of them when you had the discretion to do this, both through your party’s parliamentary adoptions, through nominated MPs or even through cabinet appointments etc? It is obvious to any thinking person that your claim of a newfound radical feminism is not genuine. So the question is: what else is not genuine in your other proposals? What else has an insidious motive and political calculation that we may not be seeing?
Or maybe there is absolutely no wrong motive and you really are the first set of politicians in Zambia who are completely honest and selfless. That may be true, but the people have no way of knowing this. So, if you had any serious concern for establishing an amendment process that is untainted with political suspicions, you would halt the process and resume after you win the next elections. If you are afraid that you might lose and these changes might not be done by the next government, because they do not love the women and youth as much as you do, rushing it now still makes no difference because they can just reverse whatever you push through. They will simply claim that they have the mandate of the voters now, which means this cycle of abusing the trust of the people will continue. Could you at least keep just one promise by putting an end to this destructive cycle once and for all?
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The author, Chanda Chisala, is the Founder of Zambia Online and Khama Institute. He is formerly a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University and Visiting Scholar to the Hoover Institution, a policy think tank at Stanford. You can follow him on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/chandachisala.
Even your words will not be given the listening ear as deserved. But your write will go in history books that you dared and said something towards the hasty laws changes in the constitution. One thing remains certain, though. That the changes they seek may just precipitate a final nail in the casket, for burial, of a regime that plugs its own ears. Conversely, if they survive it may not be for long enough. Take heed.
Not sure if this failed project is hearing you. They could be hearing you but not listening, that’s their nature
We follow the leader ???
We are mourning though these are good comments.
A Chingola youth activist has lamented the demise of ECL. His lamentation hails from the fact that he hoped that Zambia would have two former Presidents after August 2026 to give guidance to the President. He emphasised that two was always better than one. He is very sad that after August 2026 there will only be one former President in Zambia again