Against the submissions of key stakeholders in the country, President Hakainde Hichilema and his administration last week published Bill 7 of 2025 and called on civil society organisations and constitutional lawyers to take keen interest and interrogate the document.
We are not just sure which specific civil society organisations and constitutional lawyers the government was referring to, because the key institutions and personalities actually urged them to shelve the idea until the necessary consensus was established in the country. All the key Church mother bodies; the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB), Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFC) and Christian Churches of Zambia (CCZ) urged the government against proceeding with these constitutional amendments. The Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) punched holes in the government’s proposals, the same ones’ they have ended up submitting through the bill.
Key opposition political parties and a consortium of civil society organisations urged the government to first establish the necessary consensus on the constitutional amendments, as it should always be, especially on a matter as critical as the constitution. Nevertheless, the government ignored all those calls and today they have submitted before Parliament a contentious bill, denounced by many as threatening electoral competition, suppressing voter choice and undermining Zambia’s democratic trajectory.
Pointing out one of the contentious clauses, Zambia Civil Liberties Union (ZCLU) executive director Isaac Mwanza, highlighted a clause in the bill which he argued allowed a political party to retain a parliamentary or council seat regardless of the outcome of a court petition challenging the legitimacy of an election by giving back the seat to the political party that won during an election to fill the vacancy after court nullification.
The bill has also provided for enhanced constituencies through delimitation, proposing to increase elected members of parliament to 211 from 156. However, there is no record even now for Zambians to see where the same delimitation has taken place. The issues the government has proposed in the bill clearly confound their claims that there is nothing contentious about the proposals. It is clear that almost everything in that bill is contentious.
Of course, there are some good proposals in the bill, but those have unfortunately been muddied by the other regressive proposals the administration is seeking to advance, and thereby poisoning the whole undertaking in the process. And despite apprehensions from several key stakeholders, why does Hichilema and his people seem to be in a hurry to push through something that has clearly been rejected by many?
It was clear from the gate-go that matter how much people spoke; Hichilema and his administration were just simply going to push through with this undertaking in the same manner they did with all the regressive laws they have passed, such as the cyber laws.
We hope reason will reign in our members of parliament as they sit to decide on this matter that has been submitted before the house. And Zambians should begin to sharpen their penciles to be able to record the voting record of each and every member of parliament on this subject matter for posterity’s sake.
By Daily Revelation Editor
Against the submissions of key stakeholders in the country, President Hakainde Hichilema and his administration last week published Bill 7 of 2025 and called on civil society organisations and constitutional lawyers to take keen interest and interrogate the document.
We are not just sure which specific civil society organisations and constitutional lawyers the government was referring to, because the key institutions and personalities actually urged them to shelve the idea until the necessary consensus was established in the country. All the key Church mother bodies; the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB), Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia (EFC) and Christian Churches of Zambia (CCZ) urged the government against proceeding with these constitutional amendments. The Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) punched holes in the government’s proposals, the same ones’ they have ended up submitting through the bill.
Key opposition political parties and a consortium of civil society organisations urged the government to first establish the necessary consensus on the constitutional amendments, as it should always be, especially on a matter as critical as the constitution. Nevertheless, the government ignored all those calls and today they have submitted before Parliament a contentious bill, denounced by many as threatening electoral competition, suppressing voter choice and undermining Zambia’s democratic trajectory.
Pointing out one of the contentious clauses, Zambia Civil Liberties Union (ZCLU) executive director Isaac Mwanza, highlighted a clause in the bill which he argued allowed a political party to retain a parliamentary or council seat regardless of the outcome of a court petition challenging the legitimacy of an election by giving back the seat to the political party that won during an election to fill the vacancy after court nullification.
The bill has also provided for enhanced constituencies through delimitation, proposing to increase elected members of parliament to 211 from 156. However, there is no record even now for Zambians to see where the same delimitation has taken place. The issues the government has proposed in the bill clearly confound their claims that there is nothing contentious about the proposals. It is clear that almost everything in that bill is contentious.
Of course, there are some good proposals in the bill, but those have unfortunately been muddied by the other regressive proposals the administration is seeking to advance, and thereby poisoning the whole undertaking in the process. And despite apprehensions from several key stakeholders, why does Hichilema and his people seem to be in a hurry to push through something that has clearly been rejected by many?
It was clear from the gate-go that matter how much people spoke; Hichilema and his administration were just simply going to push through with this undertaking in the same manner they did with all the regressive laws they have passed, such as the cyber laws.
We hope reason will reign in our members of parliament as they sit to decide on this matter that has been submitted before the house. And Zambians should begin to sharpen their penciles to be able to record the voting record of each and every member of parliament on this subject matter for posterity’s sake.
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