HICHILEMA’S HYPOCRISY ON WOMEN REPRESENTATION
It is clear that Mr Hakainde Hichilema has remained adamant about changing the Constitution before the 2026 elections.
Officiating at the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence (GBV) at Lusaka’s Mulungushi International Conference Centre yesterday, Mr Hichilema claimed that if the country continued with the current electoral processes, it would always have fewer women representatives in the councils and parliament. He insisted that the country needed to amend the Constitution and bring in more women representatives deliberately.
Where is this desperation to amend the Constitution coming from. What is he afraid of? And did Mr Hichilema have to use the launch of the 16 days of GBV to advance his unbridled appetite to change the Constitution? Why is he so deceitful and manipulative?
It doesn’t require much intelligence to know that whatever Mr Hichilema said about the need for women representation is not coming from a principled position. It is sheer opportunism and unprincipled behaviour, and it’s wrong to manipulate our women in this way.
We call it manipulation because Mr Hichilema has had an opportunity to contest elections in this country on five (5) different occasions, if he cared so much about women representation, as he claims today, why didn’t he adopt more women to contest both the local government and parliamentary seats in all the elections he has participated in? He is president, and he had an opportunity to appoint more women in Cabinet. Did he do it? He had an opportunity as president to nominate more women to parliament. Did he do it? He also had the opportunity to appoint more women in the diplomatic service. Did he do it? What about the boards of several parastatals, state agencies, and many other government departments? How many women has he appointed to serve on these boards?
All this is just manipulation and empty rhetoric from a desperate man who is trying to cling to power at all cost. Actually, we have noted that as elections draw near, it is becoming clearer every day that Mr Hichilema is determined to patronise different groups of citizens. We have seen how he has been patronising the traditional leadership of this country, the students, the youths, and now it’s the women. But it won’t work because citizens already know his deceitful and manipulative behaviour.
We want to advise Mr Hichilema to carefully examine the demands of several key stakeholders on this matter. With the latest being the Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops (ZCCB), which ably guided in its last Pastoral Statement that: “We have noted that no roadmap on the review of the Constitution has been agreed upon to date. We accordingly urge the government to seriously consider postponing the amendment of Zambia’s Constitution to the post 2026 election period. This is because it is too late to build the kind of consensus that is required for such a serious exercise.”
The Catholic bishops are correct on this matter. The amendment of the Constitution is a very important undertaking, which can not be done without the consensus of all interested parties and citizens in general. So why is Mr Hichilema in a rush? Why is he refusing to be persuaded that he is on the wrong path? Is this what these unnecessary by-elections we are seeing are all about? To engineer Constitution amendment plans?
We urge Mr Hichilema to show sobriety and maturity in his leadership. Deceit, manipulation, and arrogance doesn’t pay. Forcing an important exercise like amendment of the Constitution will backfire very badly.
Fred M’membe
President of the Socialist Party