UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 LUSAKA 001303

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV ZA
SUBJECT: ZAMBIA - POLITICAL ROUNDUP

REF: LUSAKA 1253

LUSAKA 00001303 001.2 OF 002



1. Summary:

-- Investigation into Sata Passport Issuance
-- Patriotic Front Wins November 9 Parliamentary By-election
-- Update on National Constitutional Conference
-- Newcomer Makes Waves in MMD

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Investigation into Sata Passport Issuance
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2. The intense media coverage of Opposition Patriotric
Front president Michael Sata's allegedly lost passport
(reftel) continued in early November. The independent Post
newspaper even went so far as to publish pictures from a
closed circuit television camera at the Crowne Plaza Hotel
supposedly showing Sata tucking his passport into his jacket
pocket as he checked out. Minister of Home Affairs Ronnie
Shikapwasha announced at a November 9 press conference that
the GRZ was launching an investigation into how Sata obtained
a new passport without providing a police report as required
by Zambian law. Shikapwasha said that his Ministry had asked
Sata to provide a copy of the police report he said he had
furnished to the Zambian High Commission in London in order
to obtain a travel document that permitted him to return to
Zambia to solicit a new passport, which was also issued
without the submission of a police report. When Sata failed
to provide a copy of a police report, the Chief Passport
Office suspended the new passport and Sata turned it in to
the authorities on November 8. Shikapwasha said that the
police had recorded warn-and-caution statements against Sata
and the five passport officers who issued him his travel
document in London and the subsequent new passport in Zambia.
These warn-and-caution statements indicate that an
investigation is ongoing and that an arrest could be made at
the conclusion of the investigation. Sata has had no comment
about the investigation or the subsequent suspension of his
passport, and media coverage of the issue has died down.

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PF Wins November 9 Parliamentary By-election
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3. Patriotic Front candidate Wilbur Simuusa was the winner
in the Nchanga district parliamentary by-election held on
November 9. MMD candidate Charles Chimumbwa, whose defection
from the PF made the by-election necessary, came in a distant
second in the race, losing to Simuusa by over 6,000 votes.
Nchanga district is located in the Copperbelt

Province, which
is a traditional PF stronghold, but the MMD mobilized its
considerable resources in wooing Nchanga voters. Visits by
the President and Vice President, fertilizer, food and
chitenge (traditional cotton wraps) cloth distributions were
all elements of the MMD's campaign. However, at the last
minute Chimumbwa was called into court to face fraud charges
in a business deal gone bad, and this may have combined with
rumors that Chimumbwa accepted financial incentives from the
MMD in switching parties to make voters hold on to the PF.
The MMD did sweep seven out of the ten municipal ward
by-elections also held on November 9.

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Update on National Constitutional Conference
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4. On November 22, Parliament voted 63-61 to reject the
annual report of the Committee on Legal Affairs, Governance,
Human Rights and Gender matters because it contained
recommendations for amendments to the National Constitutional
Conference Act. The Legal Affairs Committee has a majority
of opposition members and apparently used its annual report
as an attempt to bring attention to calls for changes to the
NCC Act. Justice Minister George Kunda rejected the tactic,
saying that the government was very advanced in its
preparations for the NCC, which was originally supposed to
begin sitting next week. No official opening date has been
announced yet, and Kunda said that the NCC would open
"sometime next month." In the meantime, Heritage Party
president Brigadier Godfrey Miyanda has filed a court case
challenging the NCC on the grounds that the NCC Act
discriminates against smaller parties by only allowing
political parties who are members of the Zambia Center for
Interparty Dialogue to nominate representatives to the NCC.
The case is scheduled to be heard by the Lusaka High Court on
December 26.

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Newcomer Makes Waves in MMD
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LUSAKA 00001303 002.2 OF 002



5. An automotive and aerospace engineering professor who has
been resident in the UK for the past 18 years is making waves
within the ruling Movement for Multiparty Democracy by
announcing his intention to run for president of the party.
Professor Clive Chirwa, who only joined the MMD this past
September and who appears to have been unknown to Zambians
before a few interviews in local papers during his visit to
Zambia at that time, announced his intentions on November 22.
Professor Chirwa is chair of Automotive and Aerospace
Structures at the University of Bolton (some local papers
also refer to him as the Bolton University Professor of
Crashworthiness). MMD cadres wasted no time in circling the
wagons; Lusaka Province provincial minister Lameck Mangani
said that Chirwa would be bruised politically if he dared to
contest the MMD presidency without understanding how the
party operates. While it's unclear at this point whether
Chirwa has any staying power or if he intends to move to
Zambia from the UK, he joins a long list of MMD contenders in
advance of the tentatively-planned 2010 MMD party convention.



MARTINEZ