Mwanawasa shrugs off MPs protest

Opposition legislators boycotted parliament again on Wednesday to demonstrate their disapproval of President Levy Mwanawasa's decision to appoint an opposition leader as vice-president, a move criticised as unconstitutional. Only deputies from the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) and some "opposition" MPs, who have defied their parties and accepted positions in Mwanawasa's government, were present in parliament. This is the fifth time that MPs, calling themselves the Inter-parliamentary Caucus on the Defence of the Constitution and Good Governance (ICDCGG), have stayed away from parliament, disrupting the work of the house. "The worst thing the walkouts have resulted in is that all work done by parliamentary committees has come to a standstill, because most of them are chaired by the opposition. We shall keep staying away until Mwanawasa sees and admits the wrongs he is committing, and agrees to correct them," ICDCGG spokesperson Sakwiba Sikota told IRIN. Under Zambian law, legislators can file a motion before parliament to impeach the head of state if he has been in breach of the constitution, as long as one-third of the 158-member house signs the petition. In this case the petitioners have come up with 57 members, but believe they can collect more signatures to support their cause. The petitioners argue that the Zambian constitution prohibits a politician who contested a general election, and lost, from taking up the post of vice-president. Reverend Nevers Mumba stood in the 2001 presidential poll and was soundly beaten. Two months ago, he dissolved his own political party, joined the MMD and was appointed vice-president, replacing Enoch Kavindele, whom Mwanawasa sacked following an oil contract controversy. Mwanawasa has described the walkout campaign of the opposition as "foolish" and called on them to either resign or start sitting normally. A visibly annoyed Mwanawasa told university students on national television on Tuesday that "had the electorate known that their elected members would be walking out, they would not have elected them." Mwanawasa's inflammatory language has scuttled reconciliation efforts initiated by Home Affairs Minister Ronnie Shikapwasha. "We thought the differences would be normalised when Shikapwasha talked reconciliation - and we were ready to talk. The tirade of insults coming from Mwanawasa, however, shows that he is not ready to dialogue," Sikota told IRIN. To add to Mwanawasa's difficulties, the Non-Governmental Organisations Coordinating Committee (NGO-CC) filed an injunction on Wednesday asking the high court to block the Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) from sitting on 11 August, when it is supposed to start receiving submissions from the public. The Oasis Forum, comprising the Law Association of Zambia and influential church bodies, have refused to support the CRC, preferring a Constituent Assembly to write Zambia's fourth constitution. "When you have a parliament that refuses to sit, and a civil society that is taking legal action against the government constantly, you must know the country is in a crisis, and to deny that there's a crisis makes the situation worse," analyst Mulenga Bwalya told IRIN. If the impeachment petition is put on the table for debate, the petitioners would need an additional two-thirds of the legislators to move it forward. "After the two-thirds majority has been found, the speaker of the house must recommend that a tribunal be set up to hear the complaints of breach of the constitution by the Supreme Court... It is a difficult stage to reach because you need the numbers, but once you reach it, your petition is almost through," Vincent Malambo, a constitutional expert, told IRIN. The ICDCGG is aware of the fact that the numbers could be hard to come by, should the motion move to the second stage, but they remain optimistic. "Failure is not something we are contemplating. We shall ensure that we make other members who have not signed up see the importance of this matter," Sikota told IRIN.