Zambia - November 2023

In November, a month in which four opposition politicians were arrested in 24 hours, the Zambia Conference of Catholics Bishops (ZCCB) and the Law Association of Zambia (LAZ), released reports warning that democratic space in the country is shrinking. The reports raised a very similar set of concerns, including an increase in the arrest of opposition party members, a failure to grant them bail for bailable offences and to expeditiously bring them before courts which, according to LAZ, suggested the arrests were being used as an intimidation tactic by the state. Both reports called for government institutions to stop interfering in the affairs of opposition parties, to show greater tolerance of dissenting views (LAZ highlighted that cybersecurity and other penal legislation is being used to arrest government critics) and end the abuse of the colonial-era Public Order Act, whose security provisions were being used by the police to deny opposition party members their right to protest.

Sources: The Zambia Conference of Catholic Bishops, Law Association of Zambia, British Broadcasting Corporation, news24    

In November, civil society organisations and commentators raised serious concerns about state interference in the leadership selection of Zambia’s main opposition party, the Patriotic Front (PF). They allege that the Office of the Registrar of Societies and the Speaker of the National Assembly acted improperly to legitimise the leadership claims of one PF faction (headed by MP Miles Sampa) over another, following the party’s highly contested elective convention in October 2023. The alleged impropriety included acting on the instructions of Sampa’s faction to change the party’s leadership in the National Assembly and in the register of political parties, at a time that the leadership was still being contested in court and in a manner that was unconstitutional and fraudulent. Sampa’s leadership of the PF was confirmed by the acting Registrar of Societies on 30 November.

Sources: Mail & Guardian, Law Association of Zambia, Times of Zambia, News Diggers