President Chiluba should not and must not submit to DNA test over questions about his heritage. It is degrading to the Office of the President.
Yet, DNA may be President Chiluba's best way to shut up his critics.
The first week of testimony in the petition challenging President Chiluba's qualification and subsequent election clearly shows that the opposition won't let up easily.
From Luka Chabala Kafupi to Akashambatwa Mbikusita Lewanika, the calls for President Chiluba to submit to DNA testing are loud and clear.
DNA testing, it must be said, can be very controversial. While its accuracy rarely comes into question, the methods of testing and how samples to be tested are collected can be questioned.
Certain cases including the O.J. Simpson murder trial have used DNA testing with mixed fortunes. In the Simpson criminal trial, the results were vigorous challenged by the defense team which claimed the blood _ found in several incriminating places for Simpson _ were planted by the police. It also claimed police had mishandled the evidence. The jury hearing the criminal case acquitted Simpson. Another jury, hearing almost the same evidence, found Simpson liable for the murders of his former wife and her friend.
But like Chief Justice Mathew Ngulube quipped during the hearing last week, the panel hearing the Zambian presidential lawsuit is not a jury but a bench of qualified lawyers who would not allow inadmissible evidence to slip through.
Still, where would DNA testing be done and how can it be certain that the evidence won't be tampered if?
Most of the evidence presented so far against President Chiluba appear to be hearsay, in that the witnesses are quoting publications whose authors only can attest to the accuracy of their publications.
The most damning evidence against the president so far by Luka Chabala Kafupi. Yet, even for him, the worst that his evidence did was to say he was the father of the president. Kafupi, however, cannot confirm whether President Chiluba was born in Zaire. He, too, offered hearsay, admitting that he only heard that ``his son'' was born in Zaire.
If, for argument sake, Kafupi is President Chiluba's father, and as he claimed he did not take care of the young Chiluba who may have grown up knowing someone else as his real father, then is it fair to say President Chiluba lied about his father? He just may not have known. If that's the case, then we must sympathize with President Chiluba and thousands others who grow up knowing someone else as their real father.
In a similar twist, U.S. President Bill Clinton grew up knowing someone else as his father. In fact, the name Clinton is not the real biological surname for the U.S. president.
But these are assumptions, and this lawsuit is just beginning to heat up.
SIDEBAR: Vincent Malambo and Eric Silwamba are among the best trial lawyers in the country and are excellent picks to defend the president.
However, an appearance of impropriety seem to ooze from the case because Malambo, the Minister of Legal Affairs, appears to be representing the Frederick Chiluba and not President Chiluba.
It's all right for the top legal mind at the ministry to defend the president but why is Malambo being identified as private lawyer and not as the Minister of Legal Affairs? Is he being paid as private lawyer? If so, is he on leave at the ministry? If he is being paid as private lawyer, is it the Office of the President or Mr. Chiluba who is paying his fees?
The same can be asked about Silwamba.
From the distance, the line between taxpayer's money and private fees seem blurred.
Is it clear from there?
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