STATEMENT BY THE YOUNG AFRICAN LEADERS INITIATIVE (YALI) ON THE FAILURE OF THE CONSTITUTION OF ZAMBIA (AMENDMENT) BILL NO. 10 OF 2019 AND THE WAY FORWARD. DELIVERED MONDAY, 02 NOVEMBER 2020 AT MIKA LODGE, JESMONDINE, BY ANDREW NTEWEWE, YALI PRESIDENT

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STATEMENT BY THE YOUNG AFRICAN LEADERS INITIATIVE (YALI) ON THE FAILURE OF THE CONSTITUTION OF ZAMBIA (AMENDMENT) BILL NO. 10 OF 2019 AND THE WAY FORWARD. DELIVERED MONDAY, 02 NOVEMBER 2020 AT MIKA LODGE, JESMONDINE, BY ANDREW NTEWEWE, YALI PRESIDENT

On Thursday last week saw the failure by the National Assembly of Zambia to open up the Constitution of Zambia (Amendment) Bill No. 10 at Second Reading for any further amendments and passage further passage at Third Reading.

When the Bill was tabled in Parliament, two things were expected to happen: either pass the Bill with or without amendments or fail to pass the Bill with or without amendments. The latter is what happened through this democratic channel embedded in our parliamentary process.

The failure to pass the Bill has diminished the hopes of women who have been yearning for more women representation through a mechanism built into the electoral system. Instead of being active participants, women will remain campaign dancers for those MPs who failed to give them the right to be represented in Parliament.

The failure to pass this Bill will mean our youths and persons living with disabilities who should, through an electoral system, have a system which allows them to participate in law-making processes remain reduced to militias or chola boys of party leaders who are only needed to help these leaders ascend to power.

The failure to pass Bill 10 will mean that Government will have no need to proceed with consideration of repealing the 1955 colonial Public Order Act which many political players have complained about, including the very people who failed to pass clean up and pass Bill 10.

Both the Public Order Bill of 2019 and the Electoral Process (Amendment) Bill of 2019 which were deferred by Government at the insistence of the UPND will never see another day in Parliament. The nation and political players must prepare to play to the same old public order and electoral rules which they have complained about. Even when there is clear violence in an election such as the one we noticed in Sesheke, Kaoma, Mtendere, the courts will never have an opportunity to nullify an election as the current electoral law makes it almost impossible to nullify an election.

The failure to pass Bill 10 means those will think they will lose 2021 elections or the current atmosphere is not allowing them to campaign must begin to prepare now for the presidential petition for 2021 which will be heard within 14 days in 2021. The failure of Bill 10 will deprive those that will be aggrieved to have their petition heard within a reasonable time of 30 days. These are the repercussions-in-waiting, all thanks to the MPs who made the decision not to participate.

The failure of Bill 10 has put the delimitation process in jeopardy as no delimitation of constituencies can happen without amending the numerical numbers entrenched in the Constitution.

The failure of Bill 10 means that the chiefs who have been looking forward to State protection and recognition have lost out. This means Government continues to have nothing to do with recognition of new chiefs or succession wrangles in chiefdoms. Equally, the evangelicals and the Christians have also lost out by not having the Christian Nation entrenched in the Constitution.

The failure of the Constitution will mean that Members of Parliament from both sides continue not to have say in the decisions made by Councils in their constituencies as they will continue NOT being in the councils. We don’t expect Members of Parliament to complain but should allow councils to deliver development while they will continue making false promises to voters that they are the ones who will bring development when voted into power.

Before we proceed to discuss the way forward, we want to clearly state that there was nothing in Bill 10 which was going to advantage one candidate against another in 2021 elections. Bill 10 was not about the eligibility of President Edgar Lungu.

Although the bigger questions associated with the eligibility of Dr. Lungu were already litigated and decided by the courts, it is only true that with the failure of Bill 10 means all candidates who are generally vying for office will be subjected to the same challenge after they file their nominations in 2021. Our courts will be filled nomination petitions and we certainly shall be glad to be part of these legal nominations petitions against all candidates we shall feel do not qualify to contest the 2021 elections.

What is the way forward now that Bill 10 has failed? Our position is that we must put any amendments to the Constitution aside for two to three decades. We still have a constitution although it has lacunas which needed cleaning up. The only remaining option to clean the Constitution is to allow our competent Constitutional Court to continue pronouncing themselves on these provisions of the Constitution.

Parliament has failed in its law-making process and the shift must be to the judge-made law where only 7 to 11 special Zambians preside over the Constitutional Court should take up the mantle to, so to speak, amend the Constitution from the bench. On our part, we want to commit ourselves that we shall always approach the courts to help us clean the constitution through interpretation its various provisions or removing provisions which are there as they did in the LAZ case against former Ministers, without necessarily having these amendments to our Constitution go through the parliamentary process.

Conclusion
As we conclude, we want to emphasise that our duty is to now go out and tell Zambians what has really been lost by the failure to pass Bill 10 and to dismiss the lies which continue to be told that Bill 10 was about Edgar Lungu when it was not. Those who want to challenge the eligibility of President Lungu are encouraged to do so. Equally, those who will need to challenge the eligibility of Hakainde Hichilema or Chishimba Kambwili when time comes should be encouraged to do so. And we hope all candidates whose eligibility will be challenged will respect the decision of our Constitutional Court as it is more competent to handle these challenges.

For those women, youth and the disabled who could have joined in celebrating the failure of Bill 10, we leave with a message to reflect as these politicians make you go round to dance for them to become human shields. Finally, we don’t expect anyone to complain about the Public Order Act or the failure by the court to nullify an election when violence is seen but no candidate or agent was involved. This is the kind of law we have chosen to keep to ourselves. We can only pray for peaceful 2021 elections and speedy resolution of electoral disputes in 2021.