{"id":35146,"date":"2017-06-14T16:36:42","date_gmt":"2017-06-14T16:36:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/zambia-opposition-mps-suspended-after-missing\/"},"modified":"2017-06-14T16:36:22","modified_gmt":"2017-06-14T16:36:22","slug":"zambia-opposition-mps-suspended-after-missing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/zambia-opposition-mps-suspended-after-missing\/","title":{"rendered":"Zambia opposition MPs suspended after missing president&#8217;s speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Forty-eight Zambian MPs from the opposition UPND have been suspended for 30 days for boycotting President Edgar Lungu&#8217;s state of the nation address.}<\/p>\n<p>They refused to attend in March as they argued Mr Lungu was not the legitimate winner of last year&#8217;s election.<\/p>\n<p>Parliament speaker Patrick Matibini said the MPs&#8217; boycott was &#8220;gross misconduct&#8221;, Lusaka Times reports.<\/p>\n<p>The suspension comes as UPND leader Hakainde Hichilema is in detention facing treason charges.<\/p>\n<p>Zambia&#8217;s government has faced criticism from the country&#8217;s Conference of Catholic Bishops over its handling of the case of the opposition leader. It warned that Zambia was slipping towards a &#8220;dictatorship&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>The suspended 48 MPs represents nearly the entire parliamentary party of 58.<\/p>\n<p>{{Challenge to MPs}}<\/p>\n<p>The speaker said their ban takes effect immediately and dared the suspended MPs to resign:<br \/>\n&#8220;I therefore challenge the UPND members that if they still maintain that they do not recognise the president, they should resign on moral grounds.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Zambia has been locked in a political crisis since Mr Hichilema was arrested in April following an incident in which a convoy he was travelling in allegedly refused to give way to the presidential motorcade.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Hichillema, who lost to Mr Lungu in last year&#8217;s close election, is accused of endangering the president&#8217;s life. His lawyers argue that the charges are politically motivated.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-20794 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_96188692_hh1.jpg\" alt=\"Opposition leader Hakainde Hichilema is facing treason charges\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>Source:BBC <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Forty-eight Zambian MPs from the opposition UPND have been suspended for 30 days for boycotting President Edgar Lungu&#8217;s state of the nation address.} They refused to attend in March as they argued Mr Lungu was not the legitimate winner of last year&#8217;s election. Parliament speaker Patrick Matibini said the MPs&#8217; boycott was &#8220;gross misconduct&#8221;, Lusaka [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-35146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","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":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","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":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35146","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\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35146\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35146"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=35146"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=35146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}