Read on Twitter
"With an overwhelming majority in parliament Chiluba schemed to change the constitution in order to run for a third term. He began early and methodically. First he issued an edict that no MMD official was allowed to start campaigning for the presidency until he said so.
#Thread
#Thread
After that he announced that he did not want to stand for a third term but if the people demanded it he would feel obliged to bow to their wishes. Then he started a vigorous campaign through a number of cronies to get a movement pleading for him to stand, in the interest
of the nation. . . . He tried to buy the electorate, too. So he ordered the municipalities to sell all the houses they owned in all African townships of Lusaka, the Copperbelt and all the towns along the railway line to the sitting tenants. He set the prices at derisory levels,
representing a couple of monthsâ salary. The tenants who became homeowners were of course ecstatic. But the municipalities lost a huge chunk of their assets that generated rent income, which was financing their services. They tried to replace it by charging municipal rates based
on a new valuation roll which the new tenants considered unacceptable. They refused to pay and Chiluba ordered that they should not. After that he ordered ZCCM to adopt the same scheme for the mining housing tenants and initiated a brand new one for the higher income voters.
He called it âThe Presidential Housing Initiativeâ, which he set up in order to build upmarket houses and sell them to middle income earners at knock-down prices. His popularity was soaring. The third term appeared within his grasp.
Yet, suddenly, it all collapsed because the
Yet, suddenly, it all collapsed because the
people were outraged. They considered the third term as the thin end of the wedge and worried that it might turn out to be the precursor of another âOne Party Stateâ situation. The peopleâs indignation was marshalled by a newly formed organization named âThe Oasis Forumâ
put together by the Zambia Episcopal Conference, the Council of Churches of Zambia, the Evangelical Fellowship of Zambia, the Non-Governmental Organisationsâ Coordinating Council, and the Law Association of Zambia. The most spectacular aspect of the campaign against the third
term was the wearing of green ribbons and the deafening honking every Friday afternoon. The outcry from the institutions, the churches, the professionals and the Oasis campaign scared him and he announced that he was never really serious about running for re-election."
THE END
THE END
