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(NEWZIMBABWE) Split on process, leaders back new constitution

Split on process, leaders back new constitution
by Lebo Nkatazo
13/07/2009 00:00:00

WITH simmering differences on the question of how, the leaders of Zimbabwe’s three main parties were staging a show of unity on Monday to support a long-awaited constitutional reform process.

President Robert Mugabe and ruling coalition partners Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara differ on how the process should be carried out – a point picked on by constitutional reform activists who say the process should never be placed in the hands of politicians.

The three leaders are all expected to speak before some 4,000 delegates at an all stakeholders’ conference in the capital Harare – with Mugabe’s Zanu PF party insisting that a draft constitution crafted by lawyers from the three main parties in 2007 should form the basis of the new constitution.

The so-called ‘Kariba Draft’ has been recanted by the two MDC formations led by Tsvangirai and Mutambara who have been stung by criticism from civil society groups.

Mugabe drew the battle lines on Saturday, making a comparison with the American constitution whose crafting, he said, was “not a mass party”.

“Whatever some of our wise armchair constitutional experts would want us to believe, America’s constitution-making process was not a mass party,” Mugabe said, indicating his party is intent on promoting the controversial Kariba Draft.

Mugabe, speaking at the burial of nationalist Akim Ndlovu, said a new constitution “must deal with the problems of Zimbabwe … It must respond to our people’s aspirations, and these have been clarified over years.”

He added: "The heroes who lie on this sacred acre fought for land. Let the new constitution safeguard that land which has come back and which must perpetually come back to our people until doomsday."

Civic society groups have been split on how to confront the political leaders, some fearing that boycotting the process may be futile in the long run as the three main parties were likely to get what they want anyway.

But the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) pressure group say they will decampaign the parliament-led constitutional reform process.

NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku said: “We believe that a constitution making process must not be led by the government of the day or the political parties who dominate the government of the day.

“The process must be led by an independent body which is constituted by various stakeholders but that body must not just be independent, it must also be seen to be independent. And one way of ensuring that there is an independent process is to get a commission, normally chaired by a judge or a former judge or some other independent person.”

Madhuku added: “This current process was brought to the country by the political parties who were negotiating the so-called Global Political Agreement. That is a clear indication that it is a political party-led process of making a new constitution for the country.

“Even if it then involves people being invited by the political parties to join it, it doesn’t change the fact that it is led by politicians.”

Professor Jonathan Moyo, an independent MP, said: “Is it proper or acceptable for the current hung parliament to be the key institution to spearhead the making of a new democratic constitution under which Zimbabwe will be governed well into the unknown future? The answer is an emphatic no.”

Moyo said “because it is necessarily a product of the temporary electoral choices that depend on the political winds, interests and prejudices of the moment, parliament is by definition not inclusive enough to represent, articulate or defend the broad and permanent interests of society that must define the pillars of any democratic and enduring constitution.”

He added: “While parliament can indeed amend the constitution, subject to the entrenched provisions for its amendment such as the requirement for a two-thirds majority, there is no democratic example that justifies having the same parliament making a wholly new constitution under the direction of specific political parties that may happen to dominate it at a given time.”

Constitutional Affairs Minister Eric Matinenga said Monday’s conference would be followed by four months of formal public consultations, “then after that we have the time to do the real writing of the constitution, another three months which takes us to mid-February 2010.”

A second All Stakeholders Conference “which looks at the draft against what the people have said” will be called either in February or March next year, he said, “before we take that draft to parliament and we go to a referendum.”

Zimbabwe’s last attempt to write a new constitution ended in failure in 2000 when the public voted against a government-backed process. What has changed is that most of the activists leading the campaign to reject that draft are now in government.

Labels: CONSTITUTION, JONATHAN MOYO, KARIBA DRAFT CONSTITUTION, LOVEMORE MADHUKU, MUGABE

posted by MrK @ 4:48 PM