By Daily Revelation Editor
Last Thursday, the whole country was brought to an unnecessary standstill awaiting the outcome of the final decision of Parliament on what was described by many Zambians, both within and abroad – as the most useless Constitutional Amendment Bill Number 10 of 2019. The Bill which was designed to keep the “mighty” Edgar Chagwa Lungu and his cronies in power – had become one of the most infamous pieces of attempted legislation, the Zambian Parliament has ever handled.
We did write and explain the dangers of allowing bill 10 to pass in Parliament and also the absurdities surrounding those in favour of this Bill, especially, the ruling Patriotic Front (PF). Indeed, despite so much outcry from across the length and breadth of this country, Zambians continued to be inundated by the proponents of bill 10 with the stress of having to debate a no brainer, a Bill which had only the support of Chagwa, his loyalist, surrogates and a few opportunistic scavengers here and there. Because of Chagwa’s insatiable appetite and greed for power, we had a Bill which, if passed into law, the country could be waking up one morning to the possibility of a Peter Chanda in the office of Vice-President. Sounds like a joke, but this is one of the things a coalition government would do. For instance, in next year’s election, if Chagwa gets 49 percent and Peter Chanda gets 2.1 percent of the total votes, the two could agree to form a coalition government. Hypothetically, Peter Chanda would use the 2.1 percent as a leverage to gain some respectable position, such as that of vice-presidency. This possibility was very high and real.
In essence, Chagwa wanted to create a situation where everything, all the branches of government, which are already under his control, would now officially become subservient to him. He wanted ministers to remain in office during campaign period so that they could continue enjoying the hard-earned taxpayers’ money from Zambians’ sweat, by using state resources. This is what Chagwa wanted to achieve if the Bill had passed in Parliament . Yes, some progressive provisions were there, but the core of what Chagwa and the PF wanted to achieve through the evil Bill 10 was something that was deadly to our democracy.
And because of this, the proponents of the Bill had a very serious and well-defined goal to achieve, that is, to pass the Bill in Parliament at all costs. Our understanding about the role of Parliament and the process of enacting laws is that, it should not be a costly process. If a Bill is good, it requires less effort to explain to the masses: and equally, requires less effort for the masses to accept and make a buy in. Even members of parliament put in very little effort to explain to their constituents and electorate. However, this was not the same different with Bill 10. The PF government spent billions of Kwacha to hire surrogate organisations who were tasked to print multi-million billboards, placards, T-shirts, caps; they hired briefcase artistes to produce songs on Bill 10, etcetera. Millions of Zambian taxpayers’ money was used to buy support for Bill10. Do you really have to do all this if the Bill was good; If the Bill was in the best interest of the Zambian people, as Chagwa and his surrogates wanted the Zambian people to believe? The answer is NO!
Against all odds, and against all efforts to buy imaginary support, last Thursday, Chagwa’s Bill failed in Parliament after failing to garner the two third majority in Parliament. For the sake of our readers, please note that the controversial Bill 10 fell off when it came for second reading after Parliament failed to reach the required threshold. For the Bill to pass to the next stage (third reading), it required two third majority, meaning out of the 156 MPs, about 111 MPs should have voted for it to pass to the next stage. However, only 105 voted in favour, thus sending Bill 10 to its final burial site.
What lessons can the proponents of Bill 10 learn from this tragedy, if at all they are capable of learning? There are a number of lessons to learn. One of the lessons is that those in leadership positions, particularly Chagwa and the ruling party should respect the will of the people. From the onset, the Zambian people were not in favour of Bill 10. The Zambian people had been consistent that the process towards achieving that was not built on consensus, and the provisions of the Bill itself were self-serving to Chagwa and his party. But Chagwa and his opportunists; surrogate NGOs did not want to listen. For them, they thought they would use their mighty to bulldoze or to buy some weak and money-mongering MPs to vote in favour thereby garnering the required two thirds majority. Alas, they were lying to themselves. The UPND, NDC and some progressive independent parliamentarians devised a very powerful strategy to defeat the PF and their surrogate supporters. Worth noting also is the fact that two PF members of parliament did not vote for the bill. And on Thursday, the Zambian people were saved from the total collapse of their democracy. It is indeed a wakeup call for anyone who supports wrong things. We have said this time and again that power has a very limited lifespan. Do not let power control your brain because one day, the wrong things you do through political power would haunt you.
Today, Chagwa and the entire PF have become a laughing stock for supporting something that was against the will of the Zambian people. And the UPND, NDC and some progressive independent law makers are seen as heroes and heroines for defeating Bill 10. We therefore, urge all those who were on the wrong side of history to come to their senses and do what is right for the people of Zambia. This lesson should not be taken lightly. They should learn one or two important things out of this and change their game. It is never too late to do that. As general elections are in the offing, it is therefore up to the governing party to use this rejection positively if they are to do well in next year’s elections.
Otherwise, if they continue to place arrogance through the use of power of incumbency against the will of the people, things might not be go well for them. We say this because, we understand the amount of anger that is currently brewing in the hearts of millions of Zambians. Once again, we thank the UPND, NDC and some independent MPs, progressive civil society organisations and all the NGOs who were on the side of the Zambian people against Bill 10 to continue doing what is good, and what is in the best interest of majority Zambians. Nothing is impossible to achieve whenever the spirit of togetherness and oneness is present.