{"id":14229,"date":"2014-05-03T11:38:18","date_gmt":"2014-05-03T11:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/zambia-draft-constitution-mystery-continues\/"},"modified":"2014-05-03T11:37:47","modified_gmt":"2014-05-03T11:37:47","slug":"zambia-draft-constitution-mystery-continues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/zambia-draft-constitution-mystery-continues\/","title":{"rendered":"Zambia Draft Constitution Mystery Continues"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n

{{Under pressure to release the final draft Constitution, Zambia’s Justice Minister Wynter Kabimba said Wednesday he will need the authority of Cabinet to do so.}}<\/p>\n

The move is likely to brew fears the document will be doctored, allegations government denies.<\/p>\n

“Yes, we”ll release the document, but will only release the draft Constitution to the public after Cabinet authority,” State radio quoted Mr Kabimba as saying.<\/p>\n

“The document will be made available very soon, or within a reasonable period of time.”<\/p>\n

The heated debate has been about when the government, seemingly back-tracking on its promise to deliver a new Constitution in 90 days, would release the document to the public.<\/p>\n

In his maiden address to Parliament in 2011 following his election, President Sata, 76, said his government was committed to delivering a people-driven constitution within three months–one of his campaign pledges–which drew widespread praise.<\/p>\n

He later appointed a Committee in 2011 to collect views, but toward the end of its mandate a “tug-of-war” ensued between it and the Executive on the mode of releasing it simultaneously to the President and the public for debate.<\/p>\n

The document is now in government possession.<\/p>\n

The government seemed “uncomfortable” with the idea of releasing the document to the public, which is also demanding a referendum, before it had a “chance” to read through the content, some political commentators say.<\/p>\n

President Sata\u2019s ruling Patriotic Front party, which while in the opposition gave a wide berth to the constitution making during the administrations of former presidents Levy Mwanawasa and Rupiah Banda, has not indicated whether the process would be followed by a referendum, which stakeholders are demanding.<\/p>\n

Zambia got its independence from Britain in 1964 and has struggled to formulate a people-driven constitution for many years now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

{{Under pressure to release the final draft Constitution, Zambia’s Justice Minister Wynter Kabimba said Wednesday he will need the authority of Cabinet to do so.}} The move is likely to brew fears the document will be doctored, allegations government denies. “Yes, we”ll release the document, but will only release the draft Constitution to the public […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000051983,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-14229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000051983,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14229.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14229.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14229.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14229.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14229.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton14229.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000051983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14229"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=14229"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=14229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}