{"id":42796,"date":"2023-03-22T22:18:48","date_gmt":"2023-03-22T22:18:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/?p=42796"},"modified":"2023-03-22T09:43:22","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T09:43:22","slug":"reuben-lifuka-warns-of-weak-separation-of-power-and-remnants-of-one-party-state-in-zambia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/reuben-lifuka-warns-of-weak-separation-of-power-and-remnants-of-one-party-state-in-zambia","title":{"rendered":"Reuben Lifuka warns of weak separation of power and remnants of one-party state in Zambia"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Zambia. <\/strong><\/span>Reuben Lifuka, a prominent advocate for good governance, transparency, accountability, and environmental sustainability, has raised concerns about the state of democracy in Zambia. In an interview with The Mast, Lifuka noted that Zambia\u2019s democracy is still a work in progress, and there are remnants of a one-party state.<\/p>\n<p>Lifuka cited weak separation of power among the three arms of government, which he believes gives the executive an upper hand. \u201cWe still see very weak separation of powers between the three arms of government because of the fact that the Executive still retains the power to provide financial support or to in a way allocate budgets to the Legislature as well as the Judiciary. There is no financial autonomy of the Judiciary or the Legislature. As long as that arrangement continues, the Executive will always have an upper hand on the other arms of government,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Lifuka also raised concerns about the president\u2019s powers of appointment, stating that they give the presidency too much power. \u201cWhen we look at the appointments made by the President and where the President by the Constitution is mandated to make appointments, there is still a lot of powers that reside in the presidency. And these are some of the things that we need to address,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, Lifuka noted that there are still remnants of previous regimes where the ruling party could use law enforcement agencies to deal with perceived opponents of the ruling party. \u201cBut also we talk about protecting the rule of law which is important, but we still see remnants of what happened in previous regimes where the ruling party could weaponise the Zambia Police or any other law enforcement agency in order to deal with perceived opponents of the ruling party,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>To address these issues, Lifuka called for governance reforms, including strengthening the country\u2019s legal regime and enhancing access to justice. \u201cWe need to have in place appropriate laws like the access to information, which should enhance the freedom of expression, and freedom of association of every Zambian. We need to conclude the constitutional reform process so that we expand the Bill of Rights to go beyond civil and political rights, to include third-generation rights which are economic and social rights. We need to strengthen the legal regime, but most importantly, we need to undertake governance reforms,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Lifuka also highlighted the need to reform the local government system to make it more responsive to the needs of communities. \u201cThe local government system as we know it at the moment does not yet respond to the needs and specific needs of communities. We have a number of local governments that are essentially or technically bankrupt. They do not have sufficient resources to undertake their mandate. So all these then call for reform. How do we reform governance so that we provide support to the people, the most marginalized people in communities?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\">Zambia<\/a> Follow <a href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/\">Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Zambia. Reuben Lifuka, a prominent advocate for good governance, transparency, accountability, and environmental sustainability, has raised concerns about the state of democracy in Zambia. In an interview with The Mast, Lifuka noted that Zambia\u2019s democracy is still a work in progress, and there are remnants of a one-party state. Lifuka cited weak separation [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":42795,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,7,12],"tags":[234,235,233],"class_list":["post-42796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-head-lines","category-policy","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-zambia","tag-zambia"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Reuben Lifuka warns of weak separation of power and remnants of one-party state in Zambia - Zambia<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Reuben Lifuka, a prominent advocate for good governance, transparency, accountability, and environmental sustainability, ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/reuben-lifuka-warns-of-weak-separation-of-power-and-remnants-of-one-party-state-in-zambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Reuben Lifuka warns of weak separation of power and remnants of one-party state in Zambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Reuben Lifuka, a prominent advocate for good governance, transparency, accountability, and environmental sustainability, ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/reuben-lifuka-warns-of-weak-separation-of-power-and-remnants-of-one-party-state-in-zambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Zambia\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-03-22T22:18:48+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2023\/03\/postQueueImg_1679461796.38.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"534\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/reuben-lifuka-warns-of-weak-separation-of-power-and-remnants-of-one-party-state-in-zambia#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/reuben-lifuka-warns-of-weak-separation-of-power-and-remnants-of-one-party-state-in-zambia\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Reuben Lifuka warns of weak separation of power and remnants of one-party state in Zambia\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-03-22T22:18:48+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/reuben-lifuka-warns-of-weak-separation-of-power-and-remnants-of-one-party-state-in-zambia\"},\"wordCount\":517,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/reuben-lifuka-warns-of-weak-separation-of-power-and-remnants-of-one-party-state-in-zambia#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/zambia\/sites\/35\/2023\/03\/postQueueImg_1679461796.38.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Zambia\",\"Zambia\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"head lines\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/reuben-lifuka-warns-of-weak-separation-of-power-and-remnants-of-one-party-state-in-zambia#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/reuben-lifuka-warns-of-weak-separation-of-power-and-remnants-of-one-party-state-in-zambia\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/zambia\/all-news\/reuben-lifuka-warns-of-weak-separation-of-power-and-remnants-of-one-party-state-in-zambia\",\"name\":\"Reuben Lifuka warns of weak separation of power and remnants of one-party state in Zambia - 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