Zambia’s Roman Catholic bishops on Thursday launched a scathing attack on President Levy Mwanawasa’s government over the way the country’s new constitution is being developed.
In a strongly worded letter signed by nine bishops, the church demanded that the new constitution be adopted by a conference rather than by Parliament.
”Constitution-making requires that the method used to adopt and enact the constitution is above suspicion of manipulation by the party in government,” the statement said.
Mwanawasa has indicated that he is opposed to holding a national constitutional conference as it would be expensive. Such a constitutional conference would have been expected to be followed by a referendum.
But Mwanawasa insists that Parliament is the most appropriate body to adopt the new constitution.
The Catholic bishops and civic groups fear that if the constitution goes through Parliament, it risks being manipulated by Mwanawasa, who has great influence on his party’s lawmakers.
”Democracy is not cheap. A badly drafted constitution that might lack popular support will probably have to be revisited in yet another constitutional review — and that will surely be even more expensive,” the bishops said.
Mwanawasa appointed a 41-member constitutional review commission in April to collect views from Zambians and draft a new democratic constitution.
But some leading civic groups have refused to participate in the process, saying they needed a commitment from Mwanawasa that he would not tamper with the recommendations made by the commission.
”We, therefore, equally recommend that the final report from the constitutional review commission be submitted to a popularly constituted and representative body,” the bishops said.
This is the fourth time in 39 years that Zambia is trying to develop a new constitution that will be acceptable to all Zambians.
Previous attempts failed because the government manipulated the recommendations from the constitutional review commission. — Sapa-AFP