THEY CAN’T BE TRUSTED
…Zambians should not go to sleep as they deal with an insincere government says lawyer Jonas Zimba
- This constitution is creating what we call a dictatorship enshrined in the constitution
- Sincerity is a word that doesn’t exist in their vocabulary
- The church, civil society, unions and students’ movement should rise up and speak against the mutilation of the supreme law of the land.
By George Zulu
LUSAKA Lawyer Jonas Zimba has urged Zambians to take keen interest in the proposed constitutional amendments by the United Party for National Development (UPND) administration, saying trusting President Hakainde Hichilema to drive the process is too risk.
Commenting on the draft constitution released by the New Dawn Government, Zimba urged Zambians not to go to sleep as they were dealing with an insincere government.
“They have never been sincere; they can’t be trusted. Sincerity is a word that doesn’t exist in their vocabulary. They forget about it. They have never been sincere. And we should never allow people at large to begin to handle a sensitive process like this,” he said.
Zimba said stakeholder should demand to know why the UPND and Hichilema wanted to rush the constitutional amendment process without consultations.
He said leaders should be able to listen, unlike the way the UPND and its leadership had taken things.
“This is our country. And I want to say this with a lot of truthfulness in it. Leaders, become leaders for various reasons. Some of them for selfish reasons, others are very magnanimous and they mean well. When we look at the leadership [UPND] that is here, people don’t want to be held accountable. People don’t want to be told you can’t do this.
“One of the hallmarks of a leader is that you must listen. Now, if one of the hallmarks of a leader is that you must listen, the leaders must be able to listen to the people and the people must speak,” he said.
Zimba urged the church, civil society, unions and students’ movement to rise up and speak against the mutilation of the supreme law of the land.
“The church must speak out and say no to this process. Students’ unions must say no to this process. I have seen students who are given a few coins and they begin to support this process.
Listen, you will have the taste of what you buy out of that money for five minutes in your mouth, but you will suffer for decades because you supported a process that is incorrect. Don’t do it. A wrong is a wrong and we must condemn it. Zambians must get up and say no to this kind of thing. This constitution is creating what we call a dictatorship enshrined in the constitution. It must not be allowed,” he said.
Zimba explained that the UPND wanted to amend article 47 which talks about the electoral system to bring in the issue of the proportional representation, without showing how it would be done.
“And they want to bring under 47, they are saying, they want to bring a proportional representation in the electoral system. They use persons with disabilities as prescribed. Now, you must know that whenever the government says, or whenever legislation says prescribed, it refers to an act of parliament, by article 2. Now, what this means is that they will use the abundance of numbers and come up with anything that they want. This should not be the case,” he said.
Zimba also said there was no clear road map which the people of Zambia should support, as doing so would give the executive and the President too much power to do whatever he wanted.
“How is this supposed to work? They say under the proportional representation system, what will happen is that there will be distribution of these seats by the Electoral Commission to political parties. The Electoral Commission is a body established by the constitution. Its job is not to bring these seats, but to cast elections. Now, this particular act is unconstitutional. Why is the Electoral Commission deducting seats? Isn’t this a representative democracy? We choose those that represent us. This is what the Electoral Commission begins to do,” he said.
