Maravi

‘Rupiah can use constitution-making process to break away from patronage’

‘Rupiah can use constitution-making process to break away from patronage’
By Ernest Chanda
Tue 27 July 2010, 04:00 CAT

INSTITUTE For Human Rights and Democratic Governance (IHRDG) executive director Franco Kapijimpanga has observed that the constitution-making process provided an opportunity for President Rupiah Banda to break away from political patronage.

Supporting the Catholic bishop’s rejection of the draft constitution released to the public by the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) over a month ago, Kapijimpanga said President Banda should have used the opportunity to give Zambians a good constitution.

He said it was unfortunate that the President had joined the league of African leaders known for bad governance.

“Often, an opportunity avails itself for our leaders to break from the usual trend but it’s almost predictable that they will pass the chance that heralds greatness. And for RB, the opportunity to prove that kind of leadership beckons with the current hot issue - The draft Constitution,” Kapijimpanga said.

“The nature of discontent and disapproval of the draft Constitution and its content is an opportunity for RB to break away from the benefits of patronage, signalling that indeed impeccable leadership demonstrates that our democracy is far important and beyond any individual or any political party or self-defined interests from a particular section of society.”
He viewed President Banda’s reaction to the Bishops as an admission that there had not been much public input regarding the constitution-making process.

“The notion of nation building as implied in his statement is a call to put together a plan for engaging the rest of the country in governance and development plans. The President is saying that there is need to do things together. The constitution-making process is no exception. His reaction also is a realisation that this is what has been lacking in the past resulting in government-developed programmes, which are not subscribed to by the public,” said Kapijimpanga.

“The recent case in point being the constitution-making process which has drawn discontent and disapproval from the greater section of the people of Zambia. It is also an acknowledgement that the predecessors did not focus on this kind of approach and mechanism in any meaningful way, hence conflicts between the private sector and government, government and civil society and private sector and civil society. Is there hope that RB will do different? Again this is just a pronouncement from the President. Nothing is tangible yet. We have to wait for results.”

On Tuesday, Catholic bishops rejected the NCC draft constitution.
In a statement entitled 'A perspective of the Catholic Bishops conference on the NCC draft constitution of the Republic of Zambia', the bishops stated that the document had not taken on board people’s desires.

“We hoped against hope that the NCC would come up with a progressive document. We have said time and again that content for the Constitution has never been a real problem. The people of Zambia are very clear and consistent with what they want but they have always been let down by those in power who are supposed to be the midwives of a good Constitution,” stated the bishops.

“The common good has always been sacrificed for parochial interests by those who want to entrench their hold on power through masterminding a weak and partisan Constitution. In short, what this NCC has succeeded in doing is to violate most of the people's desires as accurately captured in the Mung'omba Draft Constitution. In its present manner, the Draft Constitution is not acceptable as a basis for coming up with a Constitution that is people-driven and one that is expected to stand the test of time.”

Labels: CONSTITUTION, FRANCO KAPIJIMPANGA, NCC

posted by MrK @ 3:26 PM