Bill 7 vote not a victory worth celebrating, says Kateka

Bill 7 vote not a victory worth celebrating, says Kateka

By Tony Nkhoma

PRESIDENT Hakainde Hichilema has removed Zambians from participating in the affairs of the nation after forcing and speedily passing the illegal and controversial Bill 7, New Heritage Party (NHP) president Chishala Kateka has said.

In an interview, Kateka warned the illegal Bill 7, which was passed on Monday by Parliament, would resurface sooner or later with greater consequences, deeper resentment and sharper divisions.

She said Zambians were left out of the constitution-making process by the regime in power, driving a party-driven constitution.

“Representation is not a substitute for authorship. To suggest otherwise is to demote the people from sovereign founders of the Constitution to passive beneficiaries of parliamentary discretion.  Democracy is not exhausted by arithmetic,” Kateka said.

She warned that the lack of consistency in driving a people-driven constitution had many repercussions in the waiting.

Kateka said constitutional questions settled without the people’s voice would not disappear but merely wait to haunt the nation for the bad decision made.

“In the illegal Bill 7 lies a dangerous conflict of procedure with democracy, and of finality with legitimacy. To declare that the greatest winners in this process are the people of Zambia and our democracy itself is to mistake movement for progress,” she said.

Kateka said democracies worldwide did not advance based on parliamentary voting but on the people’s will through a people-driven constitution.

“On these measures, the claim of victory is premature at best, and illusory at worst. The assertion that the people have spoken through their duly elected representatives is constitutionally insufficient and anyone else knows,” she said.

Kateka said members of Parliament should realise that their role to legislate was within the constitutional boundaries.

“They are not, by virtue of election alone, licenced to refashion that order without direct popular endorsement, particularly where amendments are fundamental and contested. Most troubling is the suggestion that the nation must now turn its full attention to national development. We have just made a false choice Mr President. Development divorced from constitutional legitimacy is fragile and reversible,” she said.

Kateka said no economy would thrive on a weakened democratic foundation in the manner the UPND had done.

She said Hichilema’s subordination of constitutional principle to developmental urgency was not realism but a misunderstanding of the conditions under which development endures.

“Zambians are not rejecting progress. Not at all.  They are insisting that progress rests on a foundation they recognise as their own.  History, which is rarely impressed by reassurance and never persuaded by haste, will insist on the same,” Kateka said.