Let’s look beyond constitution demand

By Edwin Sakala

Rev Father Chiti
The Chairman
Grand Coalition on the Constitution
Cc All the 16 Political Party Leaders
Lusaka

Dear Father,

We write to request your office to consider the idea of calling for an urgent meeting of the Grand Coalition to discuss the way forward as it is now very clear that the Patriotic Front government of President Michael Chilufya Sata does not want to give the nation a new
constitution before the 2016 general elections.

On this agenda we propose that the presidents must agree on a joint action to compel the Zambia National Broadcasting Corporation ZNBC to stop destroying Zambia by maintaining a total black out of the opposition parties and other stakeholders they perceive as anti-government.

From the statement made by the PF General Secretary Mr. Winter Kabimba last week that the draft will be released to the public anytime for debate of the final content, it must be clear that his party has no intention of enacting the new constitution before the year 2016.

As ZDDM, we believe that the draft constitution already received enough debate from the district, provincial and national summit which was held at Mulungushi Conference Centre last year that there is no need for further debate. Zambians are only waiting for enactment and not debate any more.

The Grand Coalition is fully aware that the PF government can not be trusted as it came through cheating the very trusting people of Zambia by making promises of achieving several goals like more money in peoples pockets, creation of jobs , a new constitution within 90 days, restoration of the Barotse agreement etc which was a mere don’t
Kubeba.

This PF culture of taking advantage of the trusting and never questioning mentality of our people has become part of its ruling style that some citizens believe the propaganda of road construction and construction of works here and there which ZNBC continue dwell on is development.

Watching ZNBC programmes one would think that no other governments constructed roads or indeed infrastructure like clinic and police stations.

We mention ZNBC and other public media because these have become very dangerous tools of deceit facilitating the Don’t Kubeba schemes of the PF government. The print public media has already destroyed itself because the newspapers are not selling while ZNBC is striving because citizens are forced by law to pay for the service.

We however want ZNBC to be on the agenda. ZDDM will not be surprised to hear that a corrupt version of the draft constitution has been presented and approved by parliament while Kabimba is diverting attention towards the document being debated further.

From past experience everybody is aware that the PF government and its mouth piece ZNBC can not be trusted hence the need for the Grand Coalition to come up with its own roadmap on how Zambians will enact a constitution which will stand the test of time.

We believe that the future of Zambia is blink for as long as the functioning of all the key national organs namely Executive, legislature, Judiciary and the forth estate which is the media remain questionable.

It is against this background that ZDDM has been advocating for a government of national unity which can repair the politically driven damage done to nearly all the organs of state in Zambia.

Rushing into an election in the current undemocratic environment atmosphere will not help Zambia because even the new government will be overwhelmed by the task of restoring the lost democratic values and erosion of professional ethics in nearly all institutions in Zambia.

It will be planting seeds of failure to expect a single political party to repair the extensive damage done to the Zambian governance system. The country needs a collective effort of all stakeholders including all the political parties to level the grounds before a proper general election can be held.

ZNBC and the Public may have downed our voice but in national interest we even staged a demonstration at parliament last year when we told the nation to forget the idea of the PF giving Zambia a proper constitution.

We even pointed out that the PF would delay the process further by appointing amcommission to go round the country once again. The statement by Mr. Kabimba is proving us right.

The civil society, Church and indeed political parties will also agree with us later that they must focus on the NCC constitutional bill which is more progressive and much better than the one drafted by the 20 PF picked Technical Committee.

We believe that the Grand Coalition must meet urgently to avoid falling prey to the PF Don’t Kubeba governance style of rule. In summary the NCC drafted is far much better and it provides for a proper roadmap of a constitution referendum at the end. Instead of fighting President Sata for a document which is inferior to the NCC bill we call on all stakeholders to direct their energy on pushing for the NCC whose final draft is already a valuable.

The Coalition must instead focus on how the opposition parties can in national interest cast aside their partisan interest as to identify a neutral candidate who can lead a transitional government before general elections can be held.

Many people did not understand our decision to recall former president Rupiah Bwezani Banda back to politics. Our idea was for him to bring together the opposition parties for the period of cleaning the system before proper elections can be held.

Please find below our proposed interim government.

Edwin Sakala
President ZDDM
The original proposal for this shadow government was as follows:

Chairman
Rupiah Bwezani Banda
we had settled on the former president because of his experience, popularity and above all to avoid a situation where political party leaders may waste time fighting for leadership. We wanted RB as we can’t afford experiments. RB can walk into State House and start the
national repair work there and then in national interest which is above partisan and personal interests. This however is subject to change depending on his final decision this week.

We had also proposed to have;
Two vice Chair persons thus the-UPND and MMD Presidents
Ministry of Information and Broadcasting- Father Bwalya
Ministry of National Development, Youth and Sports- Heritage Party
Ministry of Works, Supply and Communications – People’s Party
Ministry of Tourism – FDD
Ministry of Mines, Energy MMD
Ministry of Local government and Housing UNIP
Ministry of Labour and Social security –ZADECO
Ministry of Home Affairs – ZDDM
Ministry of Health –NDP
Ministry of Finance-ADD
Ministry of Foreign Affairs – MMD
Ministry of Education – NAREP
Ministry of Defense – APC
Ministry of Commerce, Trade and Industry –UPND
Agriculture and Livestock – UPND
Ministry of Justice – ULP
Ministry of Peoples Welfare – FDD
State Governor Level (Provincial)
Central Province Peoples Party –Mr. Mike Mulongoti
Northern Province NAREP Chipimo Junior
Western Province ADD Hon Milupi
Southern Province UPND Hon H. Hakainde
Muchinga Province MMD Hon N.Mumba
Northern Province FEDEPA Hon Sayira
Luapula Province NSP Hon D.Kasuba
Copper belt Province FDD Hon E.Nawakwi
Eastern Province ZDDM Hon E. Sakala
North Western Province Hon Charles Kafumbo