WARNING: YOUR VOTE WON’T COUNT – Kasonde

WARNING: YOUR VOTE WON’T COUNT

…It will be worthless to vote in 2026 if HH is allowed to pass Bill 7 – Kasonde

 By Tony Nkhoma

IF THIS bill passes in the next month or two it won’t matter how you vote in 2026, Linda Kasonde has warned Zambians.

Kasonde, the founder of Chapter One Foundation, yesterday warned that should Zambians allow the Constitution Amendment Bill 2025 to go ahead and illegitimately pass in Parliament, that would be the birth of dictatorship and they should forget about democracy in Zambia.

She warned Zambians that the time to stop President Hakainde Hichilema’s and the United Party for National Development’s (UPND’s) rushed proposed Constitution Amendment Bill 2025 was now and never any other time or at any process after it had gone to Parliament.

Speaking on Hot FM Radio’s ‘Hot Breakfast’ programme, Kasonde, a former Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) president, maintained that the Constitution Amendment Bill 2025 was more frightening that the rejected Bill 10 of 2021.

“It’s so important. And the other thing that I think, with regard to the content, that I think people need to understand, if this bill passes and, you know, all indications are that it will be passed in the next month or two, it won’t matter how you vote in 2026. Let me tell you that,” she said.

Kasonde warned Zambians that because through this process, the UPND could secure its two-thirds majority in Parliament and continue dictating the Constitution to favour its agenda of staying in power.

She said Hichilema’s and UPND’s attempts to control Parliament through a two-thirds majority rule in Parliament were evident with the recent by-elections that had rocked the country induced by the ruling party.

“But first of all, there’ve been a number of by-elections where they’re trying to get to that two-thirds majority. The two-thirds majority is critical because any ruling party can make any changes they want to the Constitution,” Kasonde said.

She said that was essentially a dictatorship because it would no longer matter what the ordinary citizen thought if that two-thirds majority was in place.

“So, that’s why I’m telling the people of Zambia that we can’t just wait for the next election to decide whether we are agreeable to what this government is doing or not,” Kasonde said.

She said the time was now to say ‘no’ to these bad provisions because Zambians might not have an opportunity once the bill passed.

She expressed worry that the additional number of new members of Parliament seats had only been proposed in the UPND strongholds.

“Because we’ll have no say because there will be a two-thirds majority in-built in the constitutional amendments. This addition of new MPs, if indeed it’s done in such a manner that the new constituencies are in the current government UPND strongholds, you have an additional number of MPs that will be added,” Kasonde said.

Transparency International Zambia (TIZ) executive director Morris Nyambe, who was on the same programme, said the Constitution Amendment Bill 2025 was a fundamentally flawed process.

Nyambe said the process had been marred by a very troubling lack of transparency on what really was the underpinning reason for the changes being proposed.

He said it was purely a process of self-preservation.

“Why this process is fundamentally flawed from our point of view; this process for us so far has been marred by a very troubling lack of transparency on what really is the underpinning reason for these changes are being proposed,” Nyambe said.