LEADERSHIP WRANGLES IN DEMOCRATIC PARTY: COULD IT BE THE PARTY’S FAILURE TO FOLLOW THE PROVISION OF THE REGULATORY FRAMEWORK AS THE CAUSE?
McDonald Chipenzi
Section 2(1) of the Societies Act Cap 119 of the Laws of Zambia defines an “office-bearer” in relation to any society or any committee or governing or executive body of a society, as any person who is the president, vice-president, chairman, deputy chairman, secretary or treasurer of such society committee or body, or who holds therein any office or position analogous to any of those mentioned above.
Rule 15 (1) of the Societies Act guides that where any office-bearer of a registered society ceases to hold office or any person is appointed to be an office-bearer of a registered society, such registered society shall, within fourteen days notify the registrar of such changes of office-bearers.
The question is, did DP notify the Registrar of societies the changes of office bearers when the party appointed Harry Kalaba as its presidential candidate and Judy Kabemba as Vice president for the DP?
If not, then, DP office-bearers violated the Societies Act under which the party is registered and supposed to charged for that.
This violation attracts a penalty under Rule 15(2) on every registered office-bearer thus If any registered society fails to comply with the provisions of this rule, then such society and every office-bearer thereof shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable to a fine not exceeding three thousand penalty units
Since the changes of office bearers for DP were not communicated to the Registrar of Societies within the stipulated timeframe after the party’s convention, the office-bearers reflecting at the time of the convention are the legally recognised office-bearers for the DP and have the mandate to sponsor candidates for elections.
What does the Constitution of Zambia expect a legally registered political party to do during an election?
Article 60 (1) awards a registered political party the rights to sponsor candidates for election or nomination to a state office in respect of which election are required to be held
By constitutional definition UNDER Article 266, a political party means an association whose objectives include the contesting of elections in order to form government or influence the policy of the national or local government
Therefore, the episode of 28 December, 2021 where ECZ purportedly refused to accept the nomination papers of the DP candidates on account of factionalism within the party is unconstitutional and illegal.
In my view, the act by the ECZ violated the DP, as a political party, ‘s right to sponsor candidates for elections as per Article 60(1) and also Article 266 of the Republican Constitution.
All ECZ should have done to avoid itself from directly infringing on the Constitution provision, was to advise the DP factions to come on another time within the nomination period after sorting out its internal misunderstandings on which candidate to field.
Had DP failed to come back on time for filing in nominations which was going to be the case, then, ECZ would have escaped any blame of violation of the Constitution as the DP would have come after the closure of the nominations, thereby, unable to file.
The story would have ended right there without dragging the ECZ into DP internal wrangles.
I submit
McDonald Chipenzi