THE CONSTITUTION: PART 3 – MAJORITY CONSENSUS

This is the third part of the series around the constitutional vision of 1951 and how Zambia has evolved as the foremost constitutional democracy in Africa. This third part is etched into a much longer ambition that stated that any intention for additional states (or constituencies) should be tabled and planned. Furthermore, any changes to the text of the constitution’s core principles requires wider referendum. The ambition of the forefathers in urging wide consensus on national matters is because they lived through the tyranny of being subjected to inhuman conditions that only benefitted the leadership. So they proposed thus principle as a warning.

As established in the two previous discussions, a constitution is a personal document, even equivalent to a birthright or the guarantor of birthrights. Therefore, to suggest that wide consensus is inefficient or impossible and expensive is equivalent to robbery of citizens’ birthrights and entitlement. The moment a constitution serves political than public interest, it ceases to be a national document. In historical evidence, a sectional constitution will always breed rejection whether in the now or future because it does not reflect the country and its real aspirations. In other words, it is not a document of the majority.
Unfortunately, a sectional constitution can never be a benchmark for a democratic government because it does not preserve the integrity of institutional democracy; it serves personal or sectional interests. In December 1972, for example, Zambia changed the constitution to serve sectional and personal interests by creating a one-party dictatorship that only recognized the United Independence Party – UNIP as that single party taking away any option for plural political contestation. The wording was that it would be a one-party participatory system. The presence of the word ‘participatory’ created the illusion of public inclusion in national affairs. The opposite was true. This single act kept the country on a backward trajectory for almost three decades, serving individual interests.
This change to the law was not a nationally supported initiative, it was personal (and partisan). On the contrary, before the return to multi-party politics, the country was to carry out a nation-wide referendum which was halted because the result was overwhelmingly in favour of restoring democracy. This is why people voted enthusiastically over 80% for the democratic candidate during the election that followed because each citizen was affected negatively by the sectional constitution hitherto. The inclusion of people in the referendum of 1990 was a contrast to their exclusion in 1972. From that time, the constitution made people absent, and their rights secondary. The preservation of the status quo was primary.
The best lesson from the constitutional and consequent political change in 1991 was that people finally understood that they had power. The nation understood how politics and political decisions affected them for better or worse. Even so, the interesting part about the 1972 constitution is that it preserved the hierarchy of power by concentrating it in the presidency. That constitution, in all its grand tyranny, did not empower a particular region above other regions or provinces. It focused on the institution of government to function in service to the presidency.
The same approach of keeping the government institution at the center took shape after the introduction of democracy so that it was easier for the institutions of governance to absorb decentralization. Decentralization, or democratization started at the center, being the presidency and executive overall, and then to the legislature and judiciary. In 1991, the former ruling party did not have enough seats to qualify as opposition in parliament. The incoming ruling party changed the principles and regulations to ensure the former ruling party was legally recognized as representative for their respective constituencies. This is how a democracy should work, it seeks wider representation than avoid it.
The one thing about democracy is that majority consensus is earned, not manufactured. Interestingly, electoral mandate grants the ruling party opportunity to ensure wider representation according to what the law guides. The principle of majority consensus exists to balance political versus public interest. It is therefore key that every well meaning leader prioritizes public interest over political interest in the constitution making process. This last ending will the topic for the final part in the constitutional series.