Controversial indaba continues to divide

A national conference that President Levy Mwanawasa hoped would promote national healing in Zambia ended on Monday just as divisively as it had begun. The government said the four-day "indaba" was a success because over 600 delegates showed up. But key civil society groups that had boycotted the conference maintained it was a waste of the reported US $1.5 million it cost to host it. The major recommendations from the indaba were issues that civil society had long championed: the need to have a constituent assembly to adopt a new constitution, a reduction in the size of the cabinet, and electoral reform to ensure that an elected president receives more than 50 percent of votes cast. "There is nothing that Mwanawasa did not already know, because we have given him these recommendations time and again. Did he really need to spend four days and all that money to hear it again?" asked Lucy Muyoyeta, chair of the Non Governmental Organisations' Coordinating Committee (NGOCC). Muyoyeta, whose NGOCC stayed away from the meeting, said the most important issues in the country were the growing political tensions manifested in increasing violence, an ongoing public workers' strike, and the controversy over the government's insistence on a Constitutional Review Commission (CRC), rather than a constituent assembly. "We told Mwanawasa to hold a pre-indaba meeting where we could chart an agenda and see how we were going to thrash out these issues but, instead, he goes ahead, meeting with sports groups and associations and is happy they are re-affirming what we have always said," Muyoyeta added. Key opposition political parties, civic society groups and churches all boycotted the indaba, concerned that the agenda - and the government's invitation list - was far too wide to achieve any real progress on pressing concerns. Economist Friday Banda, who attended the conference, said even the economic issues that were discussed, such as investment, tax regimes and the government's budget overruns, were already being discussed by the Business Forum, which Mwanawasa set up recently to chart Zambia's economic growth. "It is only the political tensions that were left, and these could not be tackled because opposition parties were not present. So, to say it was a waste of time and money is an understatement. It is a criminal offence to waste money like that when our hospitals are without vaccines for babies," he commented. "The indaba cost much more than the budget [deficit of US $1.4m] so one has to question government's priorities," one diplomat told IRIN. Banda alleged that, as was predicted by critics, the government controlled the outcome of the recommendations because the chairperson, Siteke Mwale, did not allow debate on issues the government was hard-pressed to answer. "Every time government was put in a spot, Mwale curtailed the debate. Delegates felt cheated," Banda claimed. The opposition also said they were concerned that Mwanawasa would present submissions made at the indaba to the CRC, validating the government's constitutional reform mechanism, which has been condemned by some civil society groups as giving the government too much influence over the final document. But, despite the criticism of the conference, Mwanawasa said an indaba would be held every two years. He also called for the report of the meeting to be circulated to all major civil society groups, including those who had boycotted the occasion.