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Zambia needs national healing and reconciliation before any debate on removing the presidential term limit, political scientist Dr James Musonda said on Tuesday, describing calls to extend President Hakainde Hichilema’s tenure as “absurd”.
Musonda said it was inappropriate to push for constitutional changes on presidential term limits while tensions surrounding the August 13 election and its aftermath remained unresolved.
“We are just coming from a disputed election where the majority of people in seven provinces of Zambia, except Southern, North-Western and Western provinces, rejected President Hakainde Hichilema, so suggesting to allow Mr Hichilema to go beyond the term limit is absurd,” Musonda said in an interview.
Official election results show Hichilema won the August 13 presidential election with 2,965,326 votes, securing a second five-year term, while opposition candidate Brian Mundubile received 1,856,217 votes.
Read more: presidential-third-term-debate-emerges-in-zambia-weeks-after-hichilema-swearing-in
Musonda said calls to remove the term limit were particularly inappropriate while opposition figures Brian Mundubile and Makebi Zulu remained in detention and following the death of former minister Mutotwe Kafwaya.
“What Zambia needs is healing before we talk about constitution amendments,” he said.
Musonda also criticised the UPND government’s record, saying it had failed to deliver on some of the commitments it made after coming to power.
He urged the ruling party to respect the constitution.
Zambia’s Constitution currently provides that a person who has twice held office as president is not eligible for election as president under Article 106(3).
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