By zambianobserver
Africa-Press – Zambia. John Sangwa’s comments following the passage of Bill Number 7 marks his most forceful political moment since the formation of the Movement for National Renewal (MNR), a project that entered the public space loudly, intellectually charged, and symbolically disruptive, but which has since struggled to sustain momentum beyond elite circles.
Speaking after the National Assembly passed Bill 7, Sangwa made it clear that his outrage was not primarily about the content of the constitutional amendments, but about what he described as a breakdown of parliamentary discipline and constitutional culture, particularly within the main opposition Patriotic Front (PF).
“What we should be discussing is not even the bill,” Sangwa said. “We should be discussing what transpired in the National Assembly on Monday.”
At the centre of his shock is the split vote among PF Members of Parliament, where a significant number voted in favour of a government-sponsored constitutional amendment.
“We had about 30 MPs voting one way and about 23 voting another way,” he said. “That should never, never happen in a parliamentary system.”
For Sangwa, this vote exposed what he called “a collapse of the parliamentary aspect of our constitutional order,” arguing that Zambia’s fused system of governance depends heavily on party discipline, especially on constitutional matters.
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“These MPs were sponsored by a political party. They used party resources and party structures,” he said. “The overriding issue should have been party unity.”
He questioned the absence of a clearly articulated PF position on Bill 7, saying the confusion in Parliament reflected institutional failure rather than democratic diversity.
“As a political party, PF should have clearly stated its position on Bill Number 7,” Sangwa said. “Up to now, we don’t know what that position was.”
Sangwa argued that MPs who broke ranks owed the public a full explanation, something he said largely did not happen.
“Those members of parliament who broke ranks were obliged to come out in the open and explain the rationale for their decision,” he said. “That explanation did not happen in most cases.”
He rejected the assumption that MPs who voted for the bill were merely acting on behalf of their constituents.
“That premise is simply assumed,” Sangwa said. “There was no public argument advanced to justify it.”
Beyond party politics, Sangwa condemned Parliament’s decision to proceed with Bill 7 while related matters were still before the courts, describing the parallel operation of the legislature and judiciary as “complete chaos.”
“What we saw was simultaneous operations of the National Assembly and the courts,” he said. “That is not how a constitutional democracy functions.”
According to Sangwa, this rendered ongoing court proceedings meaningless.
“Those matters became academic. They were overtaken by events,” he said.
His most striking conclusion was philosophical rather than procedural.
“If there is anything, what has suffered the most is our constitutional order,” Sangwa said. “What it basically means is that our Constitution is simply a piece of paper which is not respected.”
He extended this critique to public office holders more broadly.
“Bill 7 has exposed that the oath taken by the President, judges, and Members of Parliament is just an illusion,” he said. “People take the oath without truly meaning it.”
While careful to add what he described as a “huge caveat,” Sangwa acknowledged public allegations that some MPs may have been induced to vote in favour of the bill.
“I must emphasise that there is no evidence,” he said. “But even the secrecy surrounding this vote taints public trust.”
“A Member of Parliament should be driven purely by conviction and conscience,” he added, “not by inducement, monetary or otherwise.”
Politically, however, Sangwa’s intervention also reopens questions about his own trajectory. His formation of the Movement for National Renewal was framed as a moral and systemic reset, built on the argument that Zambia’s political system, after 61 years, is structurally defective and incapable of delivering reform.
“This system will never deliver,” Sangwa has argued.
Yet the movement has struggled to translate constitutional critique into popular mobilisation. Sangwa remains an elite figure, formidable in legal reasoning and institutional analysis, but with limited resonance among average voters.
Sangwa is not a rally politician, and his appeal does not naturally extend into typical rural constituencies where political loyalty is shaped by proximity, familiarity, and everyday material concerns.
Those who encouraged him to transition directly from legal practice into frontline politics may have underestimated the depth, patience, and time required to build mass political capital in Zambia. Breakthroughs of this nature often take decades, not electoral cycles.
By most measures, Sangwa would require at least 10 to 15 years of sustained grassroots engagement to convert intellectual authority into broad electoral relevance.
In this sense, Sangwa increasingly resembles another familiar figure in Zambian politics: Fred M’membe of the Socialist Party. Both are ideologically driven, intellectually rigorous, and morally assertive.
Both command respect in elite and activist spaces. And both face the same structural challenge, translating ideas into numbers.
Sangwa’s critique of PF MPs over Bill 7 may be constitutionally sound and institutionally piercing, but its political impact will depend on whether it can move beyond analysis into organisation.
Without this bridge, his warnings risk remaining what they have largely been so far: accurate diagnoses in a system unwilling, or unable, to be cured.
Source: The Zambian Observeri
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