By Isaac Zulu
MacDonald Chipenzi says the Constitution should not allow Parliamentarians whose seats have been nullified by the High Court, but have appealed to the Constitutional Court to continue sitting in Parliament and drawing salaries.
And Chipenzi has said that the Constitution should address the ambiguity regarding the campaign period prior to an election.
Speaking in an interview, Chipenzi said that government should not be spending public resources on nullified Parliamentary seats that are pending determination by the Supreme Court.
“I think that the Constitution should be clear on parliamentary seats that have been nullified by the High Court but are not yet resolved by the Constitutional Court. The Constitution should not allow people to be sitting in Parliament illegally and getting money from public coffers, which they cannot pay back when the Parliamentary seat is nullified by the Constitutional Court,” said Chipenzi, who is the Governance Elections Advocacy and Research Services (GEARS) Initiative executive director.
Chipenzi also said that the Constitution should address the ambiguity regarding the campaign period in an election period.
“For us the issue regarding the campaign period is one of the biggest challenge in the Constitution provisions. While the Constitution defines the campaign period as three months, it gives the the Electoral Commission of Zambia to determine a campaign period. It can be 13 days or five days, and that in itself conflicts with the Constitution provision. And the Constitution should redefine this,” explained Chipenzi. “The other issue is to do with nominations and challenges arising from the nominations. I think that the nomination period should be 30 days and should not be within the same campaign period. Imagine you have declared dully nominated, then you are challenged while someone is campaigning. That is an afront to democracy and does not provide a level playing field for political players participating in an election.”
He also said that there is need to do away with the cancellation of an election in an event that a candidate resigns from a political party.
“Cancellation of an election should only be done in event that a candidate dies and not resignation or disqualification,” said Chipenzi.
