Zambia: Politics of parentage
5 min read
Former Zambian President Frederick Chiluba. Towards the end of his first term, all indications were that he would not make it back for a second term. Many Zambians were dissatisfied with his governance, unfulfilled promises and rampant corruption. Consequently, a Kenneth Kaunda comeback was likely in the upcoming 1996 polls. And so Chiluba, fearing a possible defeat, hastily changed the law to prohibit citizens whose parents were not Zambian by birth or descent from standing for the Presidency. Kaunda is of Malawian descent. His goose had been cooked. Photo/FILE
By ELIAS MBAO Nation Correspondent, Lusaka
Posted Thursday, August 18 2011 at 18:00
Controversy over the parentage of presidential candidates is dominating the debate ahead of Zambia’s September 20 elections.
This constitutional requirement seems to override other qualifications for one to occupy State House.
Somehow, the law is also a weapon to eliminate opponents from the race.
Three out of the country’s four post-independence presidents have been subject to the controversies of having at least one foreign parent.
Incumbent Rupiah Banda has been crying foul for the last three months after opposition parties picked up a former diplomat’s claim that he was ineligible to run for the Presidency on grounds that his father was a Malawian, and, to some extent, his mother Zimbabwean.
“Why do they want to knock me out on technicalities?” complained 74-year-old Banda, insisting that both his parents were Zambian by birth.
This was after the main opposition Patriotic Front (PF) party of Michael Sata — his family friend but main challenger in the upcoming elections — dragged President Banda’s foreign parentage allegations to the Lusaka High Court.
While filing in his nomination papers for the Presidency, populist Sata — apparently to irritate President Banda — declared: “I am very much a Zambian citizen and both my parents were Zambians.”
Article 34(3) (b) of the Constitution requires that both parents of presidential candidates must be Zambian by birth or descent.
The legislation, widely labelled as “a bad law”, was enacted by then president Frederick Chiluba to bar his predecessor — Zambia’s founding father Kenneth Kaunda — in the 1996 elections.
Ran against frogs
Kaunda, now 87, ruled Zambia for 27 years from independence in 1964 until 1991, when Chiluba beat him in the first competitive elections in Zambia.
In previous polls considered ‘democratic’ during his one-party rule, Kaunda contested against frogs — a symbolic opponent.
At the end of Chiluba’s first five-year term, the President’s political influence was dwindling.
Many Zambians were dissatisfied with his governance, unfulfilled promises and rampant corruption.
Consequently, a Kaunda comeback was likely in the upcoming 1996 polls.
While filing in his nomination papers for the Presidency, populist Sata — apparently to irritate President Banda — declared: “I am very much a Zambian citizen and both my parents were Zambians.”
Article 34(3) (b) of the Constitution requires that both parents of presidential candidates must be Zambian by birth or descent.
The legislation, widely labelled as “a bad law”, was enacted by then president Frederick Chiluba to bar his predecessor — Zambia’s founding father Kenneth Kaunda — in the 1996 elections.
Ran against frogs
Kaunda, now 87, ruled Zambia for 27 years from independence in 1964 until 1991, when Chiluba beat him in the first competitive elections in Zambia.
In previous polls considered ‘democratic’ during his one-party rule, Kaunda contested against frogs — a symbolic opponent.
At the end of Chiluba’s first five-year term, the President’s political influence was dwindling.
Many Zambians were dissatisfied with his governance, unfulfilled promises and rampant corruption.
Consequently, a Kaunda comeback was likely in the upcoming 1996 polls.
The Ndola High Court declared Kaunda stateless and Chiluba attempted to deport him, but the Supreme Court — on appeal — restored his citizenship.
Lithuania-born Simon Zukas, a renowned politician, resigned from the Chiluba Cabinet in protest against the parentage qualification.
“It is a bad law and that is why I opposed it. I said at the time that it will cause us trouble in the future,” said Zukas this week, adding that “this bad law was pushed through by MMD and it is still there today, so we have to live by it until it is repealed, which I hope will be soon.”
Chiluba is dead but the same law is haunting his political ally — President Banda — for whom he determinedly campaigned to be re-elected.
‘Banda is Malawian’
Zambia’s ex-envoy to Malawi, Milton Phiri, currently in ‘hiding’, lit the fire when he alleged that President Banda was Malawian.
President Banda angrily dismissed the allegations.
“Both my parents were born in Chipata in Zambia,” said President Banda.
Sata’s party accused Banda of having falsified his declaration in 2008, when he stood for the Presidency, that his father was Zambian when in fact he was Malawian and, therefore, ineligible to stand in next month’s polls.
The judge dismissed the lawsuit on a technicality that, among other reasons, President Banda as the subject of the matter must have been enjoined in the suit.
However, according to the Zambian Constitution, even if the PF had sued President Banda in person, he could not appear in Court because he enjoys presidential immunity. Again, the case would have fallen off.
President Banda was born in neighbouring Zimbabwe where his bricklayer father had gone for greener pastures.
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