By Patson Chilemba
Leader of the Opposition in Parliament Robert Chabinga says he will not object to having opposition members of parliament receiving appointments to serve under president Hakainde Hichilema.
And chief whip Anthony Mumba said he wants the PF to emerge more united from the chaos the party has been engulfed in, and would not hesitate to cede his new position depending on the court outcome.
Speaking with Daily Revelation, Chabinga, who is Mafinga member of parliament (PF), said ministerial appointments were a constitutional matter for which the President had the powers to appoint those he should work with, and that could not be rejected.
He said to foster development, it must be understood from the word go that that was the way to go.
Chabinga said as leader of the opposition, his role was almost equivalent to that of a minister, but other members of parliament, including those from the opposition, should accept the opportunity to serve as ministers.
“The second thing that I will tell you is that if this was given to any of the members of parliament, because it’s a national service, it’s not an individual, it’s a national service. And it’s to give a service to the people of the Republic of Zambia. And anybody can serve anywhere,” Chabinga said. “So with regard to that, the President has powers to choose whoever he wants to choose as ministers. So I have no objection to that. That’s the issue.”
But asked how he will be presiding over a group whose overwhelming majority members are opposed to him and cited constitutional breaches by Speaker of the National Assembly Nelly Mutti in announcing him as leader of the opposition, Chabinga said he was in Parliament to serve Zambians and not to politic.
He said some of the people that opposed him thought the whole issue of his appointment would not work.
“Eventually, because my position is sort of first and foremost, people have to live with it. You know the Parliament is a parliament of rules and the position is constitutional,” Chabinga said. “So I am sitting on constitutional office which whether people at the moment agree with or not agree with, unfortunately in every game people have where they support but at the end of the day you need to come to play.”
He said people did not also want President Hakainde Hichilema to be president, and that even Edgar Lungu many did not agree with him, but that did not rule out the fact that they were presidents.
Chabinga said he shall be available to all members of parliament regardless of their positions on him.
“If they decide not to, then they will be standing on which Patriotic Front because there is only one legitimate Patriotic Front? … There is only one legitimate one,” Chabinga said. “So if people decide to say no they can’t accept and they cannot agree with me, they have the choice. The choice is theirs whether to continue working with us or vice versa.”
He said he knows the MPs he would be working with.
Chabinga said his role would be to take care of the interests of opposition members of parliament, and that they will offer “credible” checks and balances without fear or favour to the executive.
“And also it’s to make sure that the Zambians must enjoy watching Parliament from personal character assassination types to debates to issue based debates which the people of Zambia have been wanting,” Chabinga said. “So that is my first preoccupation as I take this role as leader of the opposition.”
He said he would also seek to engage the “presiding officers” to handle matters privately rather than sorting them out in the media, including working side by side with the standing orders of parliament as opposed to handling issues outside the rules.
“And I have come at the right time when we are busy amending the standing orders … our own rules of members so that the public should not perceive that when a member is disciplined, is disciplined under those standing orders as opposed to the other situation,” Chabinga said.
And Mumba said there was nothing wrong with those in the PF talking to each other to find common ground, and would find it difficult to pinpoint the exact direction matters should take when they are still being litigated in court.
He said he would use his new role to make sure that the party was providing the necessary oversight “up to the time that the status quo will change to say ok, now Mumba it’s not you, it’s another person.”
“But I would like to see PF coming out of this more than united for the benefit of our people because like I always say we are the largest opposition party and therefore we should be seen to be providing the necessary checks and balances for the benefit of our people,” Mumba said, pointing to the recent increment in the reserve ratio by the Bank of Zambia from 11.5 percent to 14.5 percent, which he said will suck out the Kwacha from the market and thereby increase the rates at which people can borrow money.
He said he already could foresee a supplementary budget with the exchange rate standing at over K23 to US$1, when the budget projected the Dollar to Kwacha ratio at K18, saying these are matters that need to be talked about.
Asked how he will work with a membership that opposes his appointment, Mumba said generally he commands a lot of respect among his colleagues, having served the house for seven years but that he would not force himself on anybody.
He said he was not expecting anybody to clap for him but he would put in his best.
Mumba said he hoped the court process would be expeditious to ensure that both parties were out of court and the next step would be to sit around the table and “say look, what do we all want?”
He said he wanted a party that was united and would be able to speak for the poor, rebrand itself and live in the new kind of leadership.
However, Mumba insisted that he did not believe that Edgar Lungu was the right person to lead the party, saying the position he held as a retiree would have given him more latitude to advise the party.
“But suffice to say that whatever court ruling that would come out, because we have to make sure that we respect our judiciary. But for now, my thinking is that we only have one party called PF,” Mumba said, however, stressing that there were some undesirable members in the party who hold that they are more PF than the others.
On the impeachment motion raised by opposition members of parliament against Speaker Mutti, Mumba said for others, the floor of the house was a platform for making “political jabs”, running commentaries and grabbing headlines, but for others it was a platform to address serious matters affecting constituencies.
He said those that have raised the motion against the Speaker have their democratic rights but they should also do self-introspection before they even start to debate on the matter, saying they might just realize that they have been as injurious as the person they are accusing of injuring them.
“Of course madam Speaker being a woman, women have got their own flows, there are elements that I see that she’s a bit emotional. It’s normal but I don’t think that her levels of competence as a renowned lawyer, successful entrepreneur have in any way belittled her ability to executive her job as madam Speaker,” said Mumba. “… But she’s also a human being. She’s not immune to some of the failures of any human being. But do those failures amount to be impeached? I don’t agree with that.”
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