PF WARNS OF CONSTITUTIONAL BREAKDOWN AS PRESIDENT LUBINDA EXPELS MPS OVER BILL 7
By Brian Matambo | Lusaka, Zambia
Patriotic Front President Honourable Given Lubinda has issued a stark and urgent warning that Zambia is sliding into a constitutional crisis following the passage and presidential assent of Constitution Amendment Bill No. 7 of 2025, a process he described as unlawful, deceptive, and contemptuous of the will of the people.
Addressing the media and leaders of the Tonse Alliance in Lusaka, President Lubinda said the enactment of Bill 7 marked a dangerous rupture in Zambia’s constitutional order, driven by a government unwilling to listen to citizens, civil society, the church, or professional bodies.
Central to his address, Honourable Given Lubinda cited the Constitutional Court judgment in Celestine Mukandila and Munir Zulu v Attorney General, a landmark ruling which found that the government’s approach to constitutional amendments was inconsistent with the spirit and substance of the Constitution. He stressed that the court was unequivocal in its guidance that constitutional reform must be people driven, led by an independent body, and anchored in wide, genuine, and meaningful public consultations.
President Lubinda said this guidance was deliberately ignored by the UPND government, which instead chose a path of defiance and constitutional erosion. He warned that by disregarding the constituent authority of the people, the government had weakened democracy, broken public trust, and placed the Republic at serious risk.
He further stated that civil society organisations, the Law Association of Zambia, the church, and citizens across the country had spoken with one voice against the Bill 7 process, but their rejection was dismissed outright. According to Honourable Given Lubinda, this disregard demonstrated a pattern of governance that excludes dissenting voices and treats national consensus as an inconvenience.
Turning to Parliament, President Lubinda said Bill 7 could not have succeeded without what he termed a betrayal of the Zambian people by Members of Parliament. He confirmed that the Patriotic Front had issued a clear three line whip directing all its MPs to attend Parliament and record a vote against the Bill. Despite repeated engagements and explicit instructions, some PF MPs voted in favour of the constitutional amendment.
In a decisive announcement, Honourable Given Lubinda declared the immediate and irreversible expulsion of all Patriotic Front Members of Parliament who supported Bill 7. He said the party was fully aware of how its MPs voted and dismissed the absence of a published division list as a political smokescreen designed to shield those who defied both party discipline and public will.
President Lubinda sharply criticised the National Assembly for failing to publish the division list days after the vote, describing the concealment as unprecedented and unlawful. He said Parliament is a House of record and that transparency is a constitutional obligation, not a discretionary act. He demanded the immediate release of the voting record, insisting that Zambians have an absolute right to know how their representatives voted on an issue of such national gravity.
He accused the ruling party of facilitating arrangements to suppress the division list in order to protect MPs who crossed the line, warning that such manoeuvres would not erase accountability or public memory.
Framing the moment as historic, Honourable Given Lubinda said constitutions are sacred covenants between the people and the state, not instruments to be manipulated for political convenience. He stressed that the Patriotic Front would neither be silent nor complicit in the face of constitutional abuse.
President Lubinda called on opposition political parties to remain united and to place national interest above personal ambition. He characterised the current moment as a liberation struggle against unconstitutional governance, democratic backsliding, and the erosion of human dignity.
Despite the severity of his warning, he emphasised that the struggle would remain peaceful, firm, and resolute. He urged Zambians not to surrender hope, saying history would judge leaders by whether they stood with power or with the people at this defining moment.
As Zambia confronts the consequences of Bill 7, Honourable Given Lubinda’s address signals an escalation in political and constitutional confrontation, with the Patriotic Front positioning itself for a sustained battle over the country’s democratic future.
What a joke!
Bitter having failed to secure Bill 10 under PF…
Stop focusing on bally & provide leadership to your party otherwise you are gone….
This is the correct, and only decision the Patriotic Front should take against those Rebel MPs.
Those Patriotic Front Rebels who voted for the illegitimate and unconstitutional Bill 7 have moved on. Keeping them in the party will completely destroy the Patriotic Front. Those people ‘s royalties are elsewhere..And come dissolution of Parliament, the second betrayal will even be worse than the first one. These people will abandon the Patriotic Front and many will join the UPND.
The Illegitimate and unconstitutional Bill 7 has given a timely warning for the Patriotic Front to know who their true members are…
A Firm decision is required. An expulsion of all those who voted for the Illegitimate and unconstitutional Bill 7.
A reorganization of the Top leadership should also be done. The party needs Organisational Charisma at the top. Appoint Hon Chishimba Kambwili as Vice President – Mobilisation. A reprieve of the Lundazi Law Maker Nyirenda should be done immediately, and her appointment as Vice President – Administration.
All the Party positions held by the rebels should be filled immediately.
Further there should be an invitation through the Party Structures National wide to start identifying Potential Candidates to stand on the Seats currently held by the Rebels.
There should be serious movement to identify shadow MPs in all the Constituencies especially those held by the Rebels.
If there’s no serious and immediate action by the Patriotic Front on the Rebels, the party is Dead.
No one will take the Patriotic Front seriously… not Civil Society, the Church and the people of Zambia.
The only way out of the mess is Expulsion of all those Rebel Members of Parliament,if the PF can salvage some credibility.
More confusion in PF, if you catch your wife with another and you are not prepared to forgive her, the only thing you can do is to divorce, and that’s what Lubinda has done. But he should remember that the PF leaders are the ones who have failed the MPs, they have failed to provide guidance, leadership, direction, confidence and inspiration not only to their MPs but to the general membership at large. You can’t have a party which fails to have a party convention but is always preoccupied with coming back to power. How do organize and rule the country when you are failing to organize your party? The MPs you are expelling today might also have consulted their electorates in their Constituencies and if that’s what the people told them, who are they to vote against Bill 7? They had no option but to follow what the voters wanted, knowing that very soon they will go back to them seeking another 5 year mandate in Parliament.
The President put it clear, Bill 7 has been a national debate and in any genuine debate, there are always those who are for and those who are against. He said it’s a give and take game. So to claim that civil society organisations, the Law Association of Zambia, the church, and citizens across the country had spoken with one voice against the Bill 7 process, but their rejection was dismissed outright is not true. The government went to all the ten provinces of Zambia and collected more that 11,000 submissions but the opposers of Bill 7 consulted no one. Instead of using the information obtained from the people, PF decided to use information obtained from America. It doesn’t make sense if the same people said to have spoken with one voice against Bill 7 are the same people who had overwhelmingly made those 11,000+ submissions to the Technical Committee. If people had rejected Bill 7, they could have chased the Technical Committee and it should have come back to Lusaka faster than it went. It’s better to depend on facts rather than depending propaganda. What has happened today is not only unique to Zambia, it’s something that happens in many other countries world over. Those who followed BREXIT from EU, not all the UK member countries were agreeable to the exit especially Scotland. But there is nothing Scotland could do alone when majority of the Union members had voted to pull out. That’s how democracy works and it will always be like that. There are always the winners and the losers and that should bring unity and not enmity, those who don’t want to lose or are not prepared to lose should stay away from national debates.
Let’s wait and see. Given, you are holding on to an entity that doesn’t even want you. Tomorrow, the young man with a corpse will also make a press release. You are screwed. Take a break and enjoy life quietly. You have been loud and made mistakes too much (you are human). These people you are fighting for are actually fighting you. They will beat your again
Do these expulsions mean more Bye Elections? And with 8 months to go to a General Elections the first Half of 2026 will Elections or will Bye Elections and General Election Campaigns be combined and consolidated? No Productivity and Development. A country of Jokers!!!
Ba Slmpo, the “expelled” MPs will continue in Parliament because Mr. Lubinda’s expulsions has no legal effect other than to drive them into the Chabinga camp.
In a situation like this, it is better to keep quiet rather than issuing threats you are incapable of carrying out.
What happens if Parliament ignores the expulsions (which is very likely)? Mr. Lubinda needs to sober up instead of playing to the PF base. To them, the expulsions is red meat.
PF lacks the ability to strategise effectively. It is easy to read them like a cheap novel and set.traps for them. Expulsions is the obvious “solution”, but will only make the situation worse.
Wait for 2026 elections he will have
No one to fire.
I’m comparing leadership under upnd and PF criminal leadership the way there are doing things under upnd Teddy kasoso, mukumbuta mulowa and Geoffrey lungwangwa when they voted bill 10 the party never expelled them from the party but now look at the bitterness and hatrages of PF criminals The way there behaving, hopefully you never got these rotten advise from bishop mukanjo Alick banda and former prostitute beatty katebe .! Those 30 mps are going nowhere.
With all the noise of who is President. It is difficult to even know who has the power to hire and fire.
Not long ago you were saying it was not necessary to create bye election in Chawama coz we are almost in the general election campaign period, today you fire 30 MPs creating 30 bye elections, Thank God You don’t have the firing power but Chabinga may have even more power than you. So nothing will happen from your word.
By the way, Mr Given, which people are you really fighting for? Such that you take all the time you are supposed to spend with your wife and Children and sacrifice it like that, do you even have your wife’s blessings ai? Eishi people you don’t love the little moment God has given you ai