LAW lecturer Munyonzwe Hamalengwa has pleaded with people to strongly defend the Constitution by rejecting President Edgar Lungu’s third term bid.
In his write-up entitled: ‘If you do not defend your Constitution, you deserve to live under dictatorship,’ Dr Hamalengwa outlines several dangers of keeping quiet at such a time.
“If you do not now defend the constitutional provision of two terms, you deserve to live under a dictatorship. And if you do not permit mandated peaceful and constitutional change of government, you make revolutionary and constitutionally justified resistance and violence, inevitable,” he wrote. “History is littered with such evidence. History will judge who will assume the greater blame and therefore accountability reparations however conceived at the material time. The Constitution is not self-executing. It is mere words written on a piece of paper. To be dynamic and alive these words must be planted in our hearts and souls and actively defended through words, advocacy, litigation, actions in parliament and on the streets and work and living places and everywhere.”
He explained that every government tends towards dictatorship because it is easier to rule a repressed population.
Dr Hamalengwa added that under a dictatorship it is easier “to preserve the status quo of corruption, aggrandisement and impunity”.
“Dictatorship is unequal. A few benefit. And those will defend the system to their death. The Constitution was designed to prevent excesses and as a safety valve for renewal peacefully,” he said.
“That is why the Constitution is worth defending constitutionally or violently constitutionally when any dictatorship tries to take away the protections and provisions of the Constitution, unconstitutionally. Defending the Constitution is lawful and the Constitution spells out dutifully that it must be defended in order for democracy to endure.”
Dr Hamalengwa warned that “those who seek unconstitutional overthrow of the Constitution are committing treason and do not have the upper hand constitutionally though they might command weapons of mass destruction and propaganda outlets and vuvuzela zealots of mass deception”.
He maintained that President Lungu does not qualify for a third term of office.
“Our current President Edgar Chagwa Lungu does not qualify under both the 1996 or 2016 constitutions to run again for office. And the prohibitions against his running are in clear language that cannot be misunderstood by any interpreter neutrally constitutionally inclined,” he explained. “The transitional provisions of Constitution Act No.1 of 2016 stipulate that the succeeding President after a death or resignation of a reigning President is to complete the term of office of the departed President. That provision doesn’t have any qualifiers. It is plain. Whatever the remaining period is, it is a term of office.”
Dr Hamalengwa encouraged people to read the Constitution so that they understand it.
“The Constitution Act No 2 of 2016 has to be interpreted through the lens of the transitional provisions of Constitution Act No. 1 of 2016…I will therefore not quote it for you. If you cannot read the impugned article yourself, how can you defend the Constitution?” asked Dr Hamalengwa.
“There is no onus on those who want to destroy the Constitution to read the Constitution. It doesn’t matter to them. They don’t care. They simply want destruction of whatever is in the way of their goal of dictatorship. Don’t expect common sense from them. Lungu is not caught in that provision where three years or less arises. He is caught by the transitional provision in Constitution Act No. 1 of completing the term of office of the departed President.”