Opposition Alliance withdraws from ZCID over draft MoU

The Opposition Alliance has quit making efforts to address unresolved issues in the draft Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for the National Dialogue.

The Alliance has also decided to withdraw from the Zambia Center for Interparty Dialogue (ZCID) with regard to the on-going national dialogue and reconciliation process.

This follows its failure to agree with the ruling PF and other political parties on the issue of the secretariat and on who to lead and chair the National Dialogue.

The Opposition Alliance, at the counsel of the Church to reach out,  had held various meetings with the ruling PF in which they attempted to amend the draft MoU between the 24th and 29th of January.

In one of the meetings both parties are said to have agreed that the three church bodies, ZCCB, EFZ, and the CCZ chair the National Dialogue, but that this resolve was not considered in the draft MoU.

The draft instead provided for an independent secretariat and left the role of leading and chairing the dialogue process to ZCID while leaving the church mother bodies only as a figure head of the process.

Aggrieved by these changes, the Opposition Alliance sought another meeting which PF Secretary General Davies Mwila and other political parties attended.

Unlike other previous meetings which were jovial, this meeting that was held on the 29th of January in Lusaka, was said to have been hostile and acrimonious.

The ruling PF and other political parties subsequently walked out of the meeting an action that forced the  Opposition Alliance to convene its own meeting the following day.

In this meeting the Alliance resolved that ZCID will no longer represent its interests regarding the dialogue process.

This is according to a statement issued on Friday the 1st of February and obtained by Q-News.