LAURA MITI WARNS BILL 7 WOULD CONFLATE ELECTORAL SYSTEMS
Lusaka… Thursday December 4, 2025 –
Governance activist Laura Miti has cautioned that Zambia risks undermining its electoral integrity if it adopts the system proposed under Bill 7, arguing that the amendment would effectively merge two fundamentally different electoral models.
Ms. Miti drew parallels with developments in South Africa, where former president Jacob Zuma’s daughter, Duduzile Zuma, recently resigned from Parliament following allegations that she had influenced young men to join Russia’s war effort against Ukraine.
She explained that Duduzile’s seat–held by the MK Party, led by her father–would now be filled by her sister, in line with South Africa’s proportional representation (PR) system.
According to Ms. Miti, the South African model allows political parties to replace Members of Parliament at will because voters cast ballots for parties, not individual candidates.
She noted that parties in that system own the parliamentary seats, can recall MPs without explanation, and even have the authority to withdraw the President if they deem it necessary.
She contrasted this with Zambia’s direct vote system, under which the electorate votes for individual MPs and the Republican President.
She stressed that once elected, officeholders possess personal mandates that political parties cannot easily overturn.
Furthermore, she pointed out that it is constitutionally impossible for a party to remove a sitting President in Zambia.
Ms. Miti said this is why Zambia has relied on by-elections whenever an MP dies or vacates their seat: “The contract is between voters and the MP,” she argued, adding that parliamentary mandates belong to individuals, not political parties.
She warned that Bill 7 seeks to borrow from the PR model by allowing political parties to unilaterally fill vacant seats within a parliamentary term–without returning to the electorate.
This, she said, would treat seats won by individual candidates as though they had been awarded through proportional representation.
Describing the proposal as “problematic,” Ms. Miti cautioned that, without the recall powers inherent in the PR system, party leaders could exploit the provision to remove MPs they disliked and replace them with preferred loyalists.
She suggested that such a system could incentivise political manoeuvring that might place MPs’ security at risk, remarking that Zambians would have to hope parties sought only to eliminate MPs from their seats, “not from their share of oxygen.”
Ms. Miti has urged a careful re-examination of Bill 7, warning that the proposed changes could distort Zambia’s democratic framework and weaken the bond between voters and their elected representatives.
Are you rehashing your public submission or just writting this article like you are a washed out celebrity that has a mental illness?
Public submissions closed. If you wanted you opinion to be considered.
Writing an article on the issue in the 14th hour just shows that this woman is just another psycho seeking to stir the pot. Lets have order bane. Time frame was given to make submissions and for those submissions to be considered. So we keep running commentaries like this until when? Lets act like mature adults.
Miti, this inefficiency is what holds back development in the Country. Now you should just hope that your late submission was already submitted on time by someone else. By the way, do you have evidence that under the current system where people vote for MPs as individuals, the elected MPs are held accountable by the voters?? We call Zambia a multi-party democracy and yet you want to claim that MPs are voted for on an individual basis. I thought MPs selected by parties campaign on the basis of their party manifestos?? If we want to strengthen the power of voters to hold to account elected MPs whether from the winning party or from independent candidates, we need other provisions for a certain threshold of voters to recall such erring MPs.
Laura, you know very well that you are just splitting hairs. You elect an MP mainly because you like his/her party’s manifesto and not because you like the individual.
I think we should also change how we address parliamentarians in Zambia. This habit of calling members of parliament honourable reduces the voters capacity and willingness to hold MPs and other elected leaders accountable. Why dont we just call them Parliamentarian so and so and councillor so and so?? This way, the elected leaders will know that they hold elective positions as representatives. In some countries they will just call some elected leaders as Senator so and so or Congressman/woman so and so. We need to stop elevating elected leaders to small gods by calling them honourable so and so..
When replacing an elected official occasioned by death or resignation, are they standard criteria that are inherent in the Constitution or each party shall develop their selection criteria? If left to political parties, then we are opening up a
Pandora’s box. In an event that the identified replacement by the party is sued by another prospective candidate, what mechanism shall the courts use to determine the case? We may be running away from by- elections costs into social turmoils and constitutional crisis.
Si kuti ba Laura naimwe mwanyanya maningi, unless it’s your opinion, then it’s a good law. If it’s not your opinion, it’s a bad law and should be withdrawn and thrown out. That’s being selfish and undemocratic. It’s sad that you didn’t want to participate in the Constitution Making Process but you are now in the fore front wanting to stop the process. And you want all those 800 plus submissions to be thrown away just because Laura Miti, Oasis Forum, Catholic Bishops, LAZ, Chapter One Foundation etc don’t want them. Don’t you think it’s unfair to other people who also want their views to be heard? And who gave you or who gives you such powers, you are not even elected office holders and are only found in Lusaka. How many people have you consulted countrywide to tell you that they are against Bill 7? Bill 7 is not a one clause Bill, it has 13 clauses which need to be amended, so why do want people to believe that everything in Bill 7 is bad? In democracy, you also need to give chance to others to air their views, you don’t hold the monopoly of wisdom. You should know that as much as you don’t like Bill 7, there are equally many people who like it, they could even be the majority and would want it to be effected. Didn’t you hear the Students that day at State House? They are eagerly waiting for Bill 7, they told the President that he is even late to take it to Parliament. Why do you always want to speak for others even when they can speak for themselves. Allow the Bill to go through so that our Youths can go to Parliament and start representing and speaking for themselves.
Miti is ignorant. South Africa is not a constitution democracy, and the party asigns MPs with parliamentary seats. That’s why Zuma behaves like he runs a family party. Why are talking about Zuma, didn’t Lungu hand-pick Tasila for MP? In South Africa you can’t hold an MP accountable because they have no constituencies. The still do bye elections in terms of death or other issues. Stop giving poor and unreasonable examples.