(NEWZIMBABWE) Tsvangirai should quit coalition govt: Madhuku

Tsvangirai should quit coalition govt: Madhuku
by Staff Reporter
02/07/2010 00:00:00

NATIONAL Constitutional Assembly (NCA) chairman, Lovemore Madhuku says Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai should pull out of the coalition government to prevent his Movement for Democratic Change party from becoming irrelevant.

Madhuku, who is also a law lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe told a conference held by Zimbabwe human rights groups at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa on Thursday that the MDC could lose credibility and support if it did not act soon.

He also said the next election should take place before May next year.
"If the MDC is not careful, it will be difficult for it to stand on a platform and promise change, because the people will not believe it.

“(The unity government) is a clear strategy on the part of Mugabe to cheat the people. It has succeeded in divorcing the MDC from its partners in the 2008 election," Madhuku said.

The NCA chairman said there were unbridgeable differences over ideas for a new constitution for the country.
He said it appeared Tsvangirai had believed that the formation of the unity government would lead to the writing of a new constitution.

Drafting a new constitution for the country was one of the key tenets of a power sharing deal agreed by President Mugabe and Tsvangirai after the inconclusive 2008 general elections.

However, Madhuku claimed the whole process had since degenerated into a farce.

"I have reports from reliable sources that whenever the constitutional consultation team is headed to a particular area, (it) is often completely evacuated.

"The 700 people involved in the (constitutional reform) exercise have no option but to just sit in a hotel in Harare. I can assure you that no people-driven constitution is being written," Madhuku told the conference.

Madhuku’s NCA has been campaigning for a new constitution but refused to back the current effort to write a new charter for the country arguing it was not “people-driven”.

The new constitution, once completed, would be put to a referendum leading to elections for a substantive government, possibly next year.