Maravi

UPND won't accept sneaky constitution conference bill - HH

UPND won't accept sneaky constitution conference bill - HH
By Mwala Kalaluka
Monday July 16, 2007 [04:00]

UPND will not accept a sneaky enactment of the constitution conference bill before it is availed to the public, party president Hakainde Hichilema has said. And Siavonga UDA member of parliament and also Hichilema’s spokesperson, Douglas Syakalima, has vowed that demonstrations would be justified if the constitution conference bill became contentious.

In an interview from Monze yesterday, Hichilema said the constitution conference draft bill should be publicised to the people before it is taken to Parliament so that the nation could understand how its composition would be. He reiterated that the composition of the constitution conference should be representative of Zambians.

“The constitution conference bill should be availed to the people of Zambia before it goes to Parliament because in that bill is contained the composition of the constitutional conference,” Hichilema said. “We will not accept a sneaky enactment of the bill.”

He said the UPND would not relent in demanding that the correct thing be done over the constitution-making process.

“We are not being acrimonious. We are very polite but we are firm on what is correct,” Hichilema said.

Recently, the Patriotic Front presented a letter to justice minister George Kunda demanding the publication of the bill before it is taken to Parliament.

And Syakalima warned that should any contentious issues arise from the enactment of the constitution conference bill, the UPND parliamentarians would pierce it until it bleeds. Syakalima said it was clear from what chief government spokesperson Mike Mulongoti said over the Constitution that the government was departing from what the majority of people agreed to on the Constitution-making process.

“Initially, people wanted the constituent assembly and the government started talking about the constitutional conference. Initially we thought that there was no difference between the constitutional conference and constituent assembly because even the civil society in their submission to the Fifth National Development Plan (FNDP) had indicated that the constitution should be adopted through the constituent assembly or constitutional conference or any other popular mode,” he said. “What is at stake now is the content of the bill that creates any of the popular modes but from the look of things and getting what Mulongoti is saying, it seems the government wants to depart from the general thinking of Zambians.”

He said Zambia was slowly degenerating into antagonism over the constitution debate due to the stance the government was taking on the issue.

“If the government again brings a bill that is contentious then demonstrations will be justified and one would not reasonably want to have demonstrations when things can be straightforward,” Syakalima said. “The reason why political parties came together to dialogue was to continue with normal living of life in our country and so let us not continue with antagonism in this country, especially the one coming from the government itself.”

He said it was wrong for President Mwanawasa to delink the civil society from the constitution-making process because civil liberties prescribe that any individual had a right to know how they were governed.

“In all essence, no civil liberties can be meaningful when people are not allowed to say anything on how they are governed,” Syakalima said. “It is unfortunate for President Mwanawasa who has a history of mistrust to start lambasting the citizens over the constitution review process.”

He said to show that they were alert even though they had remained in the Zambia Centre for Inter-party Dialogue, the UPND was also demanding the publication of the bill before it goes to Parliament.

“Since we are going through a tense situation, normal governments should have said that this is what we intend to do and they publicise the bill before it goes to Parliament,” said Syakalima.

Labels: CONSTITUTIONAL CONFERENCE, DOUGLAS SYAKALIMA, HAKAINDE HICHILEMA, UPND

posted by MrK @ 10:32 PM