FODEP UNHAPPY WITH CONSTITUTION BILL FAILURE The Foundation for Democratic Process (FODEP) has noted with profound sadness the failed Constitution Amendment Bill. This is yet another lost opportunity to avail the Zambians a people-driven Constitution. The most unfortunate thing is that the Constitution-making process in Zambia gobbled huge sums of taxpayers’ money which have been thrown into a drain. FODEP is alive to the fact that the National Constitutional Conference (NCC) Draft Constitution did not contain all the key issues that stakeholders had presented to the Mung’omba Constitutional Review Commission. For instance, the NCC failed to support the issue of appointing ministers from outside parliament, issue of presidential running mate; the 50% +1 threshold for a winning presidential candidate; inauguration period among others. In the face of this reality, it was difficult to build consensus around the Constitution-making process in the current sitting of Parliament. Notwithstanding, the NCC did, indeed, address some of the concerns of the people of Zambia. Among these were: the Mixed Member Proportional Representation (MMPR) electoral system; enshrinement of election date; rights of persons with disabilities; funding of political parties, etc. For the latter reason, it is FODEP’s view that the current sitting of Parliament should have gone ahead to pass the Constitution Amendment Bill No. 60 of the National Assembly of Zambia in its present form. There is, unfortunately, a bitter lesson that the people of Zambia must now learn from the failed Constitutional Bill. The lesson is that it is a big mistake to leave the constitution-making process largely in the hands of politicians. If this lesson is not learnt, Zambia’s constitution-making process will forever remain inconclusive. There is also a lesson that our politicians must learn from what has just transpired. Their lesson is that it is a fundamental mistake to champion partisan interests at the expense of the concerns of the voters who sent them to Manda Hill (Parliament). As regards to the way forward, FODEP is of the opinion that a SMALL group of broad based experts be constituted immediately. The task of this group is to combine all the progressive suggestions made by the people to all the previous Constitution Review Commissions (CRCs). And once the group concludes its work, adoption of the constitution should be by a Constituent Assembly (CA) as recorded by the previous CRCs.