Impeachment motion tabled in parliament

In an unprecedented move, Zambia's opposition parties on Tuesday successfully tabled a motion in parliament to impeach President Levy Mwanawasa, accusing him of "gross violation of the constitution, corruption, nepotism" and "blatant disregard" of laid-down government procedure in awarding tenders. The opposition legislators, calling themselves the Inter-parliamentary Caucus on the Defence of the Constitution and Good Governance (ICDCGG), presented the Speaker of the House with a six-page motion containing 25 allegations against Mwanawasa. Chief among the charges are that Mwanawasa violated the constitution when he appointed the Reverend Nevers Mumba, an opposition leader who failed in the 2001 presidential elections. "The laws of Zambia do not allow a person who lost an election ... [to take] up such a position. The president has poached nine opposition members from the opposition and appointed them to cabinet positions - again against the law," chief whip Crispin Sibetta of the opposition United Party for National Development (UPND) told the highly charged house. The opposition will need the support of 53 legislators out of a 159-seat house to move the motion forward and compel the Speaker to appoint a Supreme Court tribunal to look into their allegations. The ICDCGG claim to have 57 lawmakers' signatures supporting the impeachment. Crucially for Mwanawasa, his anti-corruption campaign has also angered many senior officials in his own Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) party. Both the opposition and members of the ruling party are furious that Mwanawasa appointed opposition leaders to his government, allowing him to weed out opponents within his administration. Mwanawasa, at a public rally three months ago, stated that he would "destroy" the opposition by co-opting their legislators into government positions. In defence of Mwanawasa, George Kunda, the minister of legal affairs and the attorney-general, asked the house to throw out the impeachment motion, charging that it was only meant to embarrass the president and had no hope of succeeding. "Today is a sad day in Zambia's history because of this motion. This motion is baseless, reckless and malicious, and badly drafted. The movers know that they have no chance of succeeding and are merely doing this to ridicule our beloved head of state," Kunda said. Opposition legislators have walked out of parliament five times in the current sitting in a bid to force the Speaker to allow them to present the impeachment motion. "We shall make Mwanawasa the first president to be impeached in Africa and, hopefully, that will send a strong message elsewhere in Africa," Sibetta said.