Hichilema’s desperation on the Constitution

By Daily Revelation Editor

“In one month, 27 Oct – 26 Nov, the Mushabati Committee will receive submissions from all 10 provinces & write & submit its report. The Gov is not even trying to pretend that this isn’t a box ticking exercise to resurrect Bill 7,” wrote President Hakainde Hichilema’s sympathiser Laura Miti.

In another tweet, Miti wrote: “Justice Minister was all over the news claiming massive citizen turn out to the Mushabati Committee. The insult to citizen intelligence is stunning. 2 mostly unannounced days in each prov + today when each council hosted virtual submissions. They think they are funny!”

Clearly, the desperation from Hichilema to have constitutional amendments before the 2026 general elections is palpable. It’s just insensitive and not right that a human being could be so determined to push through or force through amendments which have been widely rejected by Zambians across the board. Clearly, it is only Hichilema and his minions who seem to be in favour of this undertaking purely for their own selfish political interests. It has nothing to do with people’s interests.

If anyone were genuine on any national undertaking, they surely wouldn’t appoint a technical committee and then given that committee only one month to get the submissions and draft the report. And this is actually being done following the rejection of Bill 7 whose process was denounced by the courts as having not followed the proper channels.

For those who may have forgotten, Bill 7 can best be described as a poisonous substance, which has however, been sugarcoated with some chocolate to make the whole thing appear beautiful. It has some beautiful proposals, which are however, not the main reason why Hichilema wants to amend the constitution.

Take the provision on the delimitation of big constituencies for instance. While it is understandable that most constituencies are big and may need delimitation, it can however, be argued that that is not the most pressing problem facing this country right now with a depressed economy, where the cost of living has sky-rocked through the roof, with blackouts galore on account of the worst loadshedding in history.

Any reasonable leader who is driven by national patriotism as opposed to self-serving doesn’t even need to be reminded that if constituencies are increased, so goes the cost in terms of managing those constituencies. The constituency development fund allocation for next year has been increased to K40 million per constituency, based on the current 156 number. Has the government put in place  contingencies for the scaled up numbers in constituencies since they seem determined to pass the amendments before the elections?

However, the issue of costs and other considerations is secondary to Hichilema’s scheme of things here. Those who have followed him closely will remember that not too long ago he admitted that he was being told that he would win but most of his members of parliament would lose. Herein lies one of the key motivations behind the desperate attempts to want to amend the constitution, as the idea is to politically insulate oneself in the event of the likely parliamentary loses.

And even when there is a push to divide the constituencies, there has been no clear indication in terms of which areas will benefit mostly from the same. This has led critics to assert that the process would be tilted in such a manner that would mostly benefit the ruling party strongholds.

As all the reasonable stakeholders have submitted, this is a process that should have waited until after the elections in order to give more time to work on this important national undertaking. It’s retrogressive and undemocratic to try to use the constitution to electorally benefit an individual in the elections, especially when that beneficiary promised Zambians that we would endevour to carry out works on the constitution via a referendum.