IRIN Focus on run up to elections

Zambia's presidential election, expected to be held in November, is already mired in controversy. With just over eight months to go, a campaign by President Frederick Chiluba's supporters to amend the constitution so he can run for a third term of office, has created fierce debate across the country. A broad band of church, civic and professional bodies have begun holding mass gatherings to debate the merits of amending the constitution. At one of the biggest meetings called by the church in almost a decade, a number of organisations signed a declaration in Lusaka last week, asking Chiluba to forget a third term. The Oasis Declaration, as it was dubbed, stated among other things, that authority and respect for the constitution needed to be entrenched. It rejected suggestions from Chiluba's ruling Movement for Multi-party Democracy (MMD) for a referendum on the issue, saying Zambians had made their opinion on the issue clear to several review commissions in the past. Several civic groups have warned that they will challenge an amendment to the constitution in the courts. Party splits It has also become clear that attempts to have the constitution amended have caused divisions in the ruling party. This week two ministers were sacked for their open opposition to the move. The 'Times of Zambia' reported on Wednesday that Local Government Minister Ackson Sejani and Home Affairs Deputy Minister Edwin Hatembo were fired for impertinence and for conduct intended to incite tribal hatred and disaffection. News reports said on Tuesday that the ministers were removed after the local MMD committee in their native southern province passed a resolution urging Chiluba to obey the constitution. AFP reported that the pair were alleged to have incited violence at the conference, resulting in Agricultural, Food and Fisheries Minister Sureshi Desai and Legal Affairs Minister Vincent Malambo being assaulted. Sejani, who is also the MMD's head of elections, told the 'Times of Zambia' he did not regret opposing the third term call because the MMD came about to change lives of Zambians for the better. Hatembo said a third term for Chiluba would be fought in and outside the MMD with vigour. However, MMD chief spokesman Vernon Mwaanga has denied that the ruling party is split. He told IRIN: "There are people with different views in the MMD. There is debate going on which is healthy. We believe in all the views coming out. This does not mean that the party is split." He also said the issue was far from settled. Six of the party's provincial conferences have so far voted in favour of changing the constitution, while two have voted against it. The western province will decide in March. "The MMD will meet after that and look at all the views that have emerged," Mwaanga said, adding that even if the party decided to support amending the constitution "we would still have to persuade Chiluba" to stand for a third term. Ngande Mwanajiti, executive director of human rights group Afronet said that Chiluba's attempt at a third term would seriously dent Zambia's democracy and could lead to the re-emergence of a one party state. "He (Chiluba) has nothing to gain politically, but everything to gain economically. It is becoming clear that he does not want to step down because of the consequences that would follow, namely the cases of massive corruption. The international media, for example, is carrying a story about cobalt sales," Mwanajiti said. "The way things are going there is going to be violence. There is a need to broaden the dialogue aimed at ensuring that the constitution is upheld. If the rule of the land is upheld there will be no chaos whatsoever, but if the constitution is interfered with for the second time in five years? ..." (The constitution was last amended in 1996 to prevent former president Kenneth Kaunda from running for president.) Other problems But the "third term debate", as it has become known, is not the only obstacle to a peaceful or fair election. Three recent reports on human rights in Zambia have been extremely critical. Human Rights Watch, Afronet and the US Department of State have expressed concerns in their reports released in the past week. Mwanajiti told IRIN three issues needed to be addressed urgently to ensure a peaceful and fair election. Firstly, the Public Order Act needed to be amended to ensure that people enjoyed the right to freedom of association. "The Act requires people who want to demonstrate seven days to apply for permission. For the past seven years, opposition parties have been denied permission while government supporters get permission. As a result police are perceived as partial and pro-MMD," he said. Secondly, access to public media needed to be broadened. For example, he said, last week's meeting at which the Oasis Declaration was made, was not covered at all in local newspapers. "The other issue which is fundamental is the electoral process. Generally there is not much faith in the process because it is cumbersome. Five million people at the moment are eligible to vote but they are not (all) registered. Concerns around the electoral process must be addressed and there is time to do that. Once this is done, I see a peaceful transition taking place," Mwanajiti said. Human rights groups critical Afronet raised similar concerns in its 2001 report. It said the electoral commission's impartiality and effectiveness were questioned repeatedly, partly because during several by-elections during the year, it was "considered soft on the ruling party and to have abetted or done little to stop electoral irregularities involving the MMD". This perception has persisted and has led to calls for a more representative commission on which opposition parties and civil society are represented. The report also raised concerns about the continued abuse of government resources by, in particular, the MMD, stating that the party had used government staff and other resources to campaign during the by-elections. Another issue the report highlighted was that of freedom of association and assembly. The main obstacles to the freedoms of association and assembly in Zambia in recent years could be linked to the structure and the modus operandi of the political system, it said. "The concentration of power in the person and the office of the president over the years fundamentally endangered an effective system of rights protection," the report said, adding that a number of registered associations had not been able to operate effectively. "The police force was the most important factor in ensuring that the right to assembly was denied. . . The force exhibited heightened indifference towards the needs of various civil society groupings and opposition political parties. It used the provisions of the Public Order Act to arbitrarily deny those perceived to be in opposition to the government permission to assemble or hold peaceful processions. This, in many cases rendered the parties handicapped," the report said. It also highlighted continued police brutality, citing the violent paramilitary police crackdown on students protesting at the University of Zambia last August as an example; the harassment of opposition civic groups and individuals; and the erosion of media freedom as serious hindrances to open debate and political activity. "The state used force to silence journalists from privately owned media. Enough fear had been created and maintained by the threat of detentions and the use of physical force. The fear of arrests loomed large, thereby creating a compliant media," the report stated, adding that journalists from privately-owned media were denied access to information and hindered from attending state functions. The report also said that access to public information had been made difficult by the government, fuelling calls for a Freedom of Information Act. On police brutality and torture, the report said the practice continued unabated and that police actions had "by and large obscured any other efforts the government was making in fulfilling its obligations under the Programme for Good Governance". The National Capacity Building Programme for good Governance Document, prepared in 1999, states among other things, that the government would instill in law enforcement officers the need to abide by the constitutional provision which stipulates that every person is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Mwaanga dismissed the report on Thursday as "fiction". "Afronet is now a political party. We don't pay attention to what they say. Internationally they may be respected, but nationally they are discredited," he said. Responding to the report's claim that people's freedom of association and assembly had been infringed upon, he said: "It is totally false that freedom of association is affected. If Zambian newspapers published this, Zambians would laugh. Opposition parties are addressing public meetings everywhere." However, Human Rights Watch and the US State Department echoed Afronet's concerns in their reports released on Zambia last week. Human Rights Watch said in its 2001 report that the situation in Zambia had improved during 2000, with Chiluba implementing a number of promised economic reforms. However, the report said: "As in past years, abuses of freedom of assembly and association, freedom of expression, and the government's lack of action against torture, undermined the more meaningful economic reforms." It cited as examples the arrest of an opposition member of parliament and nine others in July for holding an "unlawful" meeting, the March 1999 detention of six journalists from the privately-owned 'Post' for publishing a story criticising Zambia's military capability and preparedness in the face of a possible military attack from Angola, and the deportation in January last year of a 62-year-old Asian British national, with just a few hours notice. In its report the US Department of State said the Zambian government continued on its economic reform programme, but that its "human rights record was generally poor". The Department's Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labour, also highlighted in the report police brutality, police infringement on citizen's privacy rights, the infringement of press freedom, and the harassment of opposition political parties and civic groups. Anders Pedersen, Sweden's first secretary for political affairs in Zambia told IRIN that the EU and other donor countries were observing developments in Zambia with interest. Six working groups comprising of representatives from several donor countries were created about a year and a half ago in response to Zambia's white paper on good governance. Pedersen, also chairman of the working group on elections, said that the EU had noted three "areas of concern" which needed to be addressed before the Zambian government could garner financial support from it. They were "an enhancement of public confidence in the election process and the electoral commission, an adherence to good practices and the promotion of a level playing field and increased voter participation", he said. The EU, through the European Development Fund, has pledged US $5.5 million for November's presidential election, about 70 percent of which will only be disbursed once the above conditions have been met. The EU would have to decide by May whether it will indeed hand over the money. "We are quite satisfied with the policies the government has adopted, but the question is about implementation. On one level or the other what we want is to have a conducive environment for free and fair elections", he said.