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50%+1, running mate critical to democracy - Chongwe

50%+1, running mate critical to democracy - Chongwe
By Misheck Wangwe in Kitwe
Thu 14 June 2012, 13:24 CAT

DR Rodger Chongwe says the 50 per cent plus one and the running mate clause in the first draft constitution are not foreign concepts but critical fundamentals of democracy.

Dr Chongwe, a member of the technical committee drafting the constitution, said the 50 per cent plus one clause would enable Zambians usher into office a popular Republican president that enjoyed the support of the majority citizenry.

He said assertions that the 50 per cent plus one clause was a recipe for anarchy were misplaced because such clauses was not new to Zambia.

Dr Chongwe, who was speaking at a public forum organised by the Press Freedom Committee of The Post, SACCORD and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung at Hotel Edinburgh in Kitwe, said there was no justification in the argument that 50 per cent plus one was a foreign concept in the national constitutionalism.

He said what was foreign in the constitution was the simple majority of electing someone to be in charge of a democratic country as big as Zambia.

Dr Chongwe said the Constitution of 1964 which created the presidency in terms of the election of the president, provided that the candidate to be declared the president of the republic must obtain over 50 per cent of the vote cast in the presidential election.

Dr Chongwe said when Zambia became a one party state in 1973, there was a constitutional amendment to reflect the one party state participatory democracy and the provisions in the 1964 constitution which insisted that for the person to be duly elected president of the country must secure 50 per cent of the votes cast.

"You will recall that even in 1995 when we were already in a multiparty democracy, the then president late Frederick Chiluba, appointed the late John Mwanakatwe to draw a constitution to replace the Mvunga constitution. In his report, Mwanakatwe stated that we are now going back to what the status used to be with regard to the election of the president so that we can secure a president who gets a majority vote and thereby bring political stability," Dr Chongwe said.

He said in the Mvunga constitution, the recommendation of the people was that the candidate must secure 50 per cent plus one but Chiluba and his colleagues in their white paper refused to accept the clause.

"The Chiluba regime reverted the country to a one party state in the Constitution where a person can become a president even if he or she secures 29 per cent of the votes and the number two secures 28.5 per cent," he said.

He said the demands from the people of Zambia on the 50 per cent plus one had been consistent.

Dr Chongwe said there were more than 72 tribes in the country and there was unity in diversity and it was imperative that people were free to choose their popular president.

He said Zambians were the owners of the constitution making process and it was up to them to decide the contents of the supreme law of the land.

On the running mate, Dr Chongwe said there was nothing wrong with a president having a running mate who shares ideologies with him to push the agenda of enhancing good governance in the country.

And Get Involved Zambia executive director Fr Frank Bwalya said all Zambians must try by all means to be counted as being part of the generation that secured a people-driven constitution that entrenches multiparty democracy.

Fr Bwalya said the change of government would be incomplete without the subsequent constitutional reforms and 50 per cent plus one clause should be a must.

Labels: 50 PERCENT PLUS 1, ROGER CHONGWE

posted by MrK @ 4:06 PM