New constitution protests continue

Pressure continues to build on the Zambian government to approve a new constitution ahead of next year's presidential polls.

Thousands of Zambians participated in yet another protest at the weekend in the capital, Lusaka, demanding a constituent assembly to approve a new governing charter - the country's fourth since independence in 1964.

Wearing green ribbons and t-shirts bearing the messages, "New constitution now!" and "Mwanawasa kuya bebele!" (President Levy Mwanawasa it's time to go), the crowd led by trade union, civil society, opposition and student leaders, warned of chaos if "the people's will" was not heeded.

Bowing to civil society pressure, the government created a Constitutional Review Commission (CRC) in 2003, but last month rejected its recommendations and told the commissioners to try again.

Civil society organisations and the opposition have backed many of the CRC's suggestions, including the dilution of presidential powers and the scrapping of the first-past-the-post electoral system, and want a constitutional assembly to agree to the changes and have the legislation in place before elections in 2006.

The Zambia Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) claimed that the government's position on the constitution had divided the country.

"As a union we are concerned that the protracted debate on the constitution has only divided us, and we call upon the government to bring the division to an end by enacting a new constitution through a constituent assembly sooner rather later," said ZCTU president Leonard Hikaumba.

For the first time, all the major opposition parties represented in parliament participated in the rally organised by the influential Oasis Forum, an alliance of the three main church bodies, the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ) and other NGOs.

The Zambian government's chief spokesman, Vernon Mwaanga, told IRIN, "We are not disturbed by the demonstrations because we believe that everybody has a right to demonstrate - all we are saying is that the Oasis Forum should wait for the constitutional review commission to hand its final draft to government, instead of jumping the gun."

Oasis Forum coordinator Chomba Chella described the weekend rally as a "success, and just a start of many more things to come - what I think is most significant is that the people that turned up for the rally did so voluntarily, like they did on 1 November."

Mwanawasa, who once publicly supported a constituent assembly as a mode of adopting the constitution, has since reneged, saying it would be "too expensive".

The 10 December rally followed a move by the ruling party, Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD), to use its parliamentary majority to defeat opposition plans to pass a law creating a constituent assembly last month.

Zambia's draft constitution, as proposed by the CRC, stipulates that a president can only be sworn into office after being elected by more than 51 percent of the registered voters.

More than 10,000 Zambians, led by the Oasis Forum, marched on parliament on 1 November, where they petitioned parliamentarians to accept the CRC's recommendations for the new constitution.

In 2002, Mwanawasa was sworn in as president after being elected by about 29 percent of the vote in an election described as not free and fair by monitors from the Atlanta-based Carter Centre and the European Union (EU).