IT IS CHEAP POLITICS , NAIVE AND MALICIOUS FOR FORMER PRESIDENT EDGAR LUNGU TO LIE ABOUT SECRET CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT PROCESSES
By Mark Simuuwe
It is naive and malicious for someone like former President Edgar Lungu to claim that President Hakainde Hichilema has initiated amendments to the constitution secretly.
It is cheap politics for ECL to make such claims on unofficial matters .
Edgar Lungu should not be so desperate to seek attention and say things that have no basis and no substance to the national agenda as a way of winning political mileage .
A man who has ruled the country before must speak to official information from government not hearsay or unofficial information .
The office of the President uses official channels to communicate to the public and not hearsay . Anything not yet published is never official.
We expect a high level of correspondence from a former head of state not baselesss social media inuendos .
The 2016 Constitution which ECL wants to praise himself for was started by President Micheal Sata and was completed at consultation level before ECL became President . ECL simply grabbed the document to have it presented to parliament and enacted . ECL has never allowed for a good law making process at his time . He endeavored to make sure bad laws were made .
The problem is that Mr Lungu thinks President Hcihilema reasons the same way the former did on Bill 10 and the Public Order Act , in which he aimed at destroying the country’s democracy by raping the constitution of Zambia amendment no.2 of 2016 .
If at all there will be any need to amend the constitution, there will be an official announcement and the process shall be guided by the principles of of the rule of law and inclusivity and not the old PF lopsided approach to constitutional amendments.
Citizens may recall that the said Bill 10 process under ECL was marred with corruption of some members of parliament from the opposition and some civil society organizations that went round the country to try to force and deceive citizens to accept a dirty document, by the Patriotic Front(PF) government in order to stop political opponents from contesting elections.
Fortunately, citizens and well-meaning civil society, rose up to the occasion and stopped ECL’s impunity.
ECL’s government influenced and ensured that bad laws were made . Laws which were meant for the opposition like the Cyber Security and Cyber Crime Act , which are now haunting Edgar Lungu . Many of you may have heard Edgar Lungu complaining that some people are being arrested for expressing hate on social media today . This is the Cyber Law that ECL initiated and praised until it was enacted by his MPs.
As many citizens may recall , alongside the 2016 amendments, ECL and his administration earlier attempted to amend the Bill of Rights without inclusivity and this sparked a serious national debate which saw some civil society activists arrested. ECL further pursued to destroy the media space by further attempting to influence a process of PF aligned civil society organizations at his time to commence a process of regulating journalists, which process collapsed when the UPND came into power .
Citizens have not forgotten how ECL and his MPs maliciously spearheaded a movement to destroy our democracy as such , it is not only malicious and deceptive for him to publish hearsay , but a sign of being irresponsible by someone who is supposed to be a former head of state .
Citizens must overlook this level of desperation .
Ends //
You have been caught in fragrante delicto ba daala!!
To the Credit of former President Edgar Lungu is the Zambian Constitution which answered to the cries of the Zambian people – What all the constitutional review commissions had been calling for – A majoritarian President, Provisions for a Run off, a running Vice President mate, an end to useless Bye Elections caused by Political prostitution of Members of Parliament, fixed date of elections. All progressive Constutional clauses previous presidents had been shelving were assented to by Edgar Lungu. No one will take this away from him. HE DID IT…and in less than 5 months
But boy oh boy, in enters the known crooked Elections Thief of the Kabushi and Kwacha Elections fame, who sees democracy as an enigma, destroying all democratic Institutions in his path now sets his sights on our hard won constitution…to remove the clauses Zambians have been fighting for , for 60 years! Let him , and the proxies he is using for his Mingalatos know that they will be ‘ fyanthaed’ for standing in the way of democracy.
And who doesn’t know the stealthy nature of the Mingalatoon. He runs an opaque Government like a secret society. He started making noise on non contentious issues in the constitution some time back, stealthily using Malcontent MPs like Chabinga to come up with a list of such clauses. Since when were Constutional amendments done in Chabinga’s pocket? The Mingalatoon was confronted by the opposition, some civil society, the church and the Oasis Forum. He quickly ran for cover in the drought!
So Edgar Lungu, Fred Mmembe, All opposition parties, the Church, Civil Society, the Oasis Forum, students, traditional leaders, be alert and very alert 24/7. We are dealing with a threat against our democracy. This is not cheap Politics. It’s the existence of Zambia as a democratic state, or the degeneration into an Autocratic wamuyaya Country, under the eternal rule of the Mingalatoon.