People of the British Isles always call for a public inquiry when something goes wrong in Her Majesty’s government or after a major incident. The reason for this now familiar call is that lessons need to be learnt from past events so that in future better decisions could be made. Sometimes these inquiries cost the taxpayer a lot of money (E.g. the Bloody Sunday Inquiry in Northern Ireland is costing the taxpayer more than £200Million!) but they are worth every penny if they serve their purpose i.e. learn the lessons.
The Zambian society has also developed its own system for learning lessons. Commissions of inquiry headed by eminent members of society or judicial officials are normally set up by the President to look at specific issues of great public interest. For instance there have been a number of Commissions to look at the constitution making process (Mungomba, Mwanakatwe, Mvunga). However, even after expanding public resources and time, politicians always seem to ignore the findings of the commissions. One therefore asks why we bother with these expensive committees other than for window dressing purposes or quenching public anger.
The Mungomba Commission spent a lot of time and money going around the country and the globe gathering evidence from the people of Zambia and other interested parties on what should underpin a future constitution for the Republic. When the late President set up the commission, he gave them the solemn responsibility to produce a document that will stand the test of time and a change of government. With this primary objective in mind, the commission produced a draft constitution that was widely accepted as reflecting the wishes of the people.
Unfortunately, the MMD government set about unpicking the document soon after the handover ceremony. They did not like anything in the document that provided a level political playing field. Even the great Mwanawasa had to be dragged kicking and screaming to set up a Constitution Assembly as a mode of scrutinising the draft constitution. He had favoured using the MMD controlled National Assembly. Even after reluctantly setting up the Constitution Assembly, the MMD made sure that this body was not as envisaged by the Mugomba Commission which led to the largest opposition party boycotting it.
Despite the initial teething problems and the absurd allowances being paid to delegates, the NCC (as it is known) has gone about its work diligently and a great deal of professionalism. However, it has lost some shine on two important issues. The first one concerns the famous 50 plus 1 clause in the draft constitution that called for the winning candidate in a presidential election to achieve at least 51% of the votes cast. The MMD do not like this provision because they know it is likely to produce a victory for the opposition. They have therefore made sure the clause is not adopted and has to be put to a referendum. The other worrying development is the well known MMD trick of personalising the Constitution. MMD delegates are now pushing for a clause that requires Presidential Candidates to have a minimum qualification of a Bachelor’s Degree. This is a blatant attempt to stop Mr. Sata from contesting the next Presidential election. We seem not to have learned from the 1996 constitution that targeted KK by inserting a very narrow citizenship clause. It is very clear by these examples that the MMD’s objective is to produce a document that will ensure they remain in power and do not care about the integrity of the constitution itself. We seem not to have learned the lessons from past mistakes.
If the PF-UPND pact wins the election next year, I will not be surprised if they set up another Constitution Commission to produce a constitution “that will stand the test of time” i.e. one that will ensure that the pact remains in power!
The PANEL.
