Trust, The People Et-cetra..
With my deepest apologies to my dear Lombe Tembo, I will not
be voting next year, just like I didn’t vote last year, 2011 and 2008. In fact
I look back with regret at 2006 when I voted for the first and most likely last
time. Voting, for me, is an overt endorsement of a system of governance that
creates and has continued to create inequalities and an economic order serving
the median voter. It is an acceptance that the majority are always right and I
will not be part of it.
God! That felt good!
Listening to the constitutional Amendment Bill debate in
parliament on Wednesday it became very clear to me why this process has been
more protracted than a footballers niggling knee injury. I don’t know how many
times we have done this but we have been here before a dozen times. Between a
cruel game of brinksmanship and genuine concerns about the content of the
document, we have somehow managed to find ourselves in the midst of the mother
of all muddles as regards the constitution.
Sifting through the impassioned debates from both sides of
the house one is left in no doubt regarding the deep distrust that exists among
our politicians. The mistrust between this lot is extremely hard to stomach. In
fact I had a hard time believing that not too long ago a pact of sorts existed
between the UPND and the PF. Having listened to both sides of the debate with
rapt attention, from the rather surprisingly coherent impassioned defence of
government’s approach by Information Minister Honourable Chishimba Kambwili, to Kalomo Member of Parliament
Honourable Request Muntanga (in his heavy Tonga accent)it seems something will have to give before we
even get to the stage where the content will be debated.
The People
It might have seemed a philosophical debate, but a number of
speakers particularly from the opposition vehemently vowed to defend the will
of the people without ever defining who the people are. And the difficulty this
portends was surprisingly ably illustrated by Honourable Kambwili’s submissions
where he gave examples of people who are people yet whose views might not be
represented. If we are to strictly follow the requirements of our democratic arrangement,
parliament are the people’s representatives. However there seemed to be a
reluctance on both sides of the house to recognise this fact let alone boldly act
on it.
The underlying tones of this whole thing though point to one
element; the lack of trust. An atmosphere of mistrust has been hanging over
successive constitution making ventures like a fiend. Unsurprisingly, main
thrust of the government’s debate seemed to be a message that can be summed up
as “please trust me”. Perhaps no one encapsulated this position more than the
Minister of Justice who repeatedly and with growing exasperation tried to
assure the house that government meant well and were just as eager for a people
driven constitution as the rest of us. If this were a marriage it would have
been dissolved on account of trust issues.
Well, it is just that when issues of trust are brought into play,
it is normal for people to delve into history and look at one’s track record.
Even a cursory glance down memory lane reveals glaring and well documented
instances when the constitution itself or the constitution making process has
been abused and used to fix political opponents (both real and imaginary), or
tweaked in order to prolong one party’s stay in power. Unfortunately or maybe
even fortunately, these lines of distrust run deep and are quite long. You can
trace them all the way from the Kaunda era to today. As such civil society and
opposition party concerns should not be merely dismissed as far-fetched
manifestations of paranoia but should be attended to if the government wants
even a semblance of legitimacy for the document that will be finally churned
out.
Fusion of Power
Sadly this process has also laid bare the many shortcomings
of our country’s supreme law, non-more evidently exemplified than the fusion of
power between the executive and legislature when ideally the two are supposed
to comprise the triumvirate of separate but equal arms of government namely the
executive, judiciary and legislature. The fact that honourable Ministers have
to somehow turn into these two-faced organisms that shuffle between
parliamentary representatives and representatives of the executive, is in
itself an encumbrance to effective parliamentary constituency representation.
In all honesty how does one expect a Minister to somehow within the same breath
pipe and support government’s position and at the same time present that of their
constituents even when the two positions are diametrically opposed? As such
more often than not and as we saw on Wednesday, the ruling party defaults to
its now well-trodden path of using their house majority, knowing that its
members have a very good idea of which side of their bread is buttered. The end result is that the whole thing becomes
an academic exercise albeit one emblazoned by passionate debate, some well
thought out expert opinions but still the inevitable ending of a government
win.
Process determines content
Much of the debate on Wednesday centred on process because
as some ardently argued “Process determines content”. Whether this assertion is
an indisputable fact remains a debate for another day. However I wish to echo
the sentiments of Honourable Request Muntanga and to some extent Honourable
Gary Nkombo of Mazabuka Central. That while we are haggling about the process,
let us not forget that the biggest challenge is to ensure that the content
reflects the will of those that made submissions to the Technical Committee
drafting the constitution. I hesitate to say “the people “as I too am not
convinced as to who exactly are the people. We however hope that those that
made submissions are representative of the collective psyche or at least the
views of the average Zambian out there. And that these views will be respected
as the “people’s wishes, regardless of the costs involved or other
considerations.
That article opens a big dispute through my friends. Trust to anyone is a complicated process that includes many factors. I have just started to write my religion definition essay and that requires a huge work to do.
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