Maravi

(NEWZIMBABWE BLOG) ‘Constitutional crisis’ a myth

‘Constitutional crisis’ a myth
Posted By Jonathan Moyo on 29 Oct, 2009 at 1:21 pm

WILL Zimbabwe hold fresh presidential elections should the MDC-T’s so-called “partial pullout” from the coalition government become a “full pullout”?

Although there are some naive and excitable people out there who are beginning to run away with their infertile electoral imaginations at the behest of some American and European merchants of regime change, the unequivocal constitutional and legal position based on the GPA is that there is no chance in heaven that the MDC-T’s disengagement from the coalition government on the account of some weird solidarity with Roy Bennett who made his brutal fame in the murderous Rhodesian infantry will lead to a fresh presidential poll.

Not even the MDC-T’s parallel government will make that happen!

The time has come for the MDC-T and its foreign and Rhodie handlers to understand that their talk of a fresh presidential poll is only their dream which might end up as a costly nightmare for them not least because they are in conspicuous and very serious breach of Articles IV and XIX of the GPA while Zanu PF has fulfilled all its formal GPA obligations.

Parenthetically, it is useful to recall the roots of the MDC-T mindset behind its breach of the GPA that has given rise to its ill-fated expectations of a fresh presidential election.

If there is one thing that can be said with certainty about the MDC-T, it is that whenever it finds itself facing the dustbin of history, as it now does following its self-defeating decision to disengage from the coalition government, the foreigners and Rhodies who run, fund and control it routinely use their media connections to engineer political tension and to deploy their saboteurs to instigate political violence in the country which they blame on Zanu PF.

A case in point is a dangerous propaganda line which started running in the MDC-T-affiliated media last week to the effect that if this week’s meeting of GPA principals fails to accommodate the party’s demands, it would be up to the visiting SADC ministerial Troika on Politics, Defence and Security to save the situation and if that does not work, the task will fall into the hands of the presidents of Mozambique, Angola and Zambia who constitute the full SADC Troika and if they too fail to please it, the MDC-T will demand a full SADC summit and if it ends like the Troika, then the MDC-T will make its disengagement permanent by calling for fresh presidential elections run by SADC and the African Union under the supervision of the United Nations.

To give drama to this propaganda line, MDC-T spokesperson Nelson Chamisa was made to convene a widely-covered press conference on Tuesday against his better judgment where he made preposterous claims that there were growing reports of incidents of political violence and kidnappings of MDC-T activists across the country and he singled out Chiweshe in Mashonaland province as the most affected.

Chamisa further claimed, to the delight of the Rhodie media elements in attendance, that invasions of white-owned farms by “Zanu PF thugs” were now rampant.

For anyone to believe this garbage, for example that there are still white farms out there to be invaded, which is now typical of the MDC-T whenever it is cornered or whenever it loses its grip on the political situation in the country, they would have to be either from Mars or to be totally insane.

Ever since it was formed, the MDC-T has proven beyond any doubt that it succeeds only and only when Zimbabweans are suffering, when there is political violence and when the country is under the spell of political tension and instability.

No wonder then, that the only thing that the MDC-T can do successfully is to unleash negative propaganda to the point of using Rhodesian Selous Scouts tactics of deploying its saboteurs disguised as Zanu PF elements to instigate violence.

The years of hyperinflation and illegal economic sanctions were the best for the MDC-T simply because the party lacks capable and competent leaders who can address policy issues under conditions of peace and stability. Over the last eight months, the MDC-T has failed to perform or to show its leadership competence in the multi-currency economic environment.

In fact, if Zanu PF has deadwood preoccupied with policies for the people, the MDC-T has deader wood, which worries only and always about selfish posts and never about policies.

While in the vain hope of a fresh presidential election the MDC-T is now determined to subvert all national and SADC initiatives to stabilise the coalition government, and while the party likes making all sorts of noises about alleged outstanding GPA issues, its leaders and their foreign handlers along with their media hacks continue to show profound ignorance of the GPA and its constitutional and legal implications.
Even children who have read the GPA and Constitutional Amendment (No. 19) know that President Mugabe’s constitutional and legal position as Head of State, Head of Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces was not created by the GPA.

More specifically, Constitutional Amendment (No. 19), which gave legal effect to the GPA, did not create the position of the President. Instead, and this is very important for the MDC-T and its foreign handlers and media hacks to understand, both the GPA and Constitutional Amendment (No. 19) recognise President Mugabe’s position as a prior and therefore continuing fact.

Section 20.1.6(1) of the GPA, which is also captured under “Schedule 8″ of Constitutional Amendment (No. 19) clearly states that “there shall be a President, which office shall continue to be occupied by President Robert Mugabe”. The use of the word “continue” is to make it abundantly clear, for the avoidance of any doubt, that President Mugabe was legally, constitutionally and legitimately in office before the GPA was signed and before Constitutional Amendment (No. 19) was enacted.

This wording is in sharp contrast to the wording of Section 20.1.6(3) of the GPA, which is also part of “Schedule 8″ of Constitutional Amendment (No. 19), whose provision is that “there shall be a Prime Minister, which office shall be occupied by Mr Morgan Tsvangirai”.

Equivalent wording is used in both the GPA and “Schedule 8″ of Constitutional Amendment (No. 19) with reference to the two deputy prime ministers, ministers and deputy ministers who, unlike Tsvangirai, are not even named as individuals.

What this clearly means is that, whereas the coalition government’s Prime Minister, the two deputy prime ministers, who were sworn in on February 11, 2009, the ministers and deputy ministers, who were sworn in on February 13, 2009, are specific and temporary or transitional creations of the GPA and can only hold office only if the GPA holds, the same does not apply to President Mugabe, who holds office as a result of his election on June 27, 2008, and his having been sworn in on June 29, 2008, and whose term of office expires together with that of Parliament in March 2013.

While the Prime Minister, his deputies and ministers and their deputies “started” office on February 11 and 13, 2009, respectively, President Mugabe “continued” being in office and indeed administered the oath of office to those who joined him last February.

It should also be recalled and emphasised that the election of President Mugabe on June 27, 2008, and his swearing in on June 29, 2008, has never been legally challenged by anyone in any court of law or set aside by any court of law nor has it been subject of any negotiation.

As such, it is wishful thinking that a so-called “full pullout” by the MDC-T from the coalition government would mean or require a fresh presidential election ahead of March 2013.

The collapse of the GPA would mean that Tsvangirai and his cronies cease to be members of the Government and that “Schedule 8″ ceases to be part of the Constitution and that all parliamentary by-elections would be contested and that the configuration of Parliament would change.

But President Mugabe would continue as Head of State, Head of Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces with the constitutional and legal power to form and run government.

Furthermore, when the MDC-T says it will call for elections if its demands for a post for a former Rhodesian infantryman called Roy Bennett are not met, it is being childish because everyone knows that only the President can call for elections in terms of the Constitution and that elections in Zimbabwe are now harmonised such that the next elections that are due by March 2013 would have to involve presidential, parliamentary and local government polls.

In the same vein, it is idle and treacherous talk for the MDC-T to imagine that the next elections in Zimbabwe will be run by SADC and the African Union under the supervision of the United Nations. Never!

That idea alone proves that the MDC-T is a dangerous external project for regime change.

We cannot and we will not have foreign run elections simply because the MDC-T says we must have them against the law.

Section 11 of Constitutional Amendment (No. 19) Act adopted with the full support of the MDC-T establishes a new Zimbabwe Electoral Commission to organise and run all elections and referendums in Zimbabwe.

There is no room there for SADC, the African Union or the United Nations except perhaps as observers at the invitation and under the authority of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.

For these reasons, it is in the interest of the MDC T and its foreign handlers and media hacks to get real or risk oblivion faster than they can say “disengagement”.

Labels: JONATHAN MOYO, NATIONAL UNITY GOVERNMENT

posted by MrK @ 6:20 PM