MANOAH ESIPISU, Lusaka | Thursday
ZAMBIAN President Frederick Chiluba’s ruling party has taken its first formal step towards his election for a currently unconstitutional third term – and political analysts say he is likely to stay in power.
Chiluba appears to be behind an orchestrated campaign by his Movement for Multiparty Democracy (MMD) to persuade him to accept nomination for a third five-year term.
The biggest hint yet that Chiluba will be a candidate in presidential elections towards the end of the year came at the weekend when the executive committee of the MMD’s central province branch adopted a formal resolution asking him to run.
Analysts said the remaining eight provinces were likely to follow suit and the Zambian parliament, in which the MMD holds more than the required two-thirds majority, would probably amend the constitution to remove the existing two-term limit.
”The president is preparing the ground for his third term,” said Ngande Mwanajiti, executive director of the Zambian human rights group Afronet.
Jotham Momba, professor of political science at the University of Zambia, said Chiluba was using the party to lay the ground for a third term.
The president cannot say reports that he is keen to change the constitution to serve his interests are mere speculation because the calls are coming from his cadres,” Momba added.
Chiluba ended founding President Kenneth Kaunda’s 27-year reign when he won landmark multi-party elections under a new constitution in 1991.
Under Zambian law, neither he nor Kaunda is eligible to stand in the elections in the last quarter of this year.
Chiluba insisted until last November he would retire at the end of his second term and has repeatedly urged other African leaders not to cling to power.
But he told reporters on his return from a trip to China in November and again after a trip to Japan in December that it would be for the party to decide whether he should stay on.
South African leader Thabo Mbeki has urged Chiluba to respect the constitution and bow out when his time comes, but aides to the Zambian leader say he may be more inclined to follow the example of Namibian leader Sam Nujoma last year in amending the law to keep himself in office. – Reuters