Maravi

(HERALD) We deviated from people’s views: Mangwana

COMMENT - Must be written by one of The Herald's new MDC reporters, because I can't make heads or tails of it. What do they mean with "During the collation of data, he said, Zanu-PF legislators had been consistent that they should use the quantitative analysis as opposed to qualitative"?

We deviated from people’s views: Mangwana
Friday, 31 August 2012 05:34
Herald Reporters

COPAC co-chairperson Cde Mun­yaradzi Paul Mangwana yesterday con­fessed to deviating from the people’s views when they collated and produced a final draft Constitution.
He said it was wrong for Copac to negotiate when people had clearly made a pronouncement on issues they wanted included in the new Constitu­tion.

The Zanu-PF co-chair said this dur­ing a public debate organised by Crisis Coalition.
The discussion centred on the stale­mate in Constitution-making.

“My conscience was telling me that we should not negotiate on the people’s views, but the MDCs would argue that this is a modern world, let’s use the best practice,” said Cde Mangwana.

“If the people of Zimbabwe chose that they wanted mono-citizenship, we should respect that but I participated in the illegal thing of negotiating the Con­stitution thereby compromising what the people said.”

He said the Zanu-PF Politburo grilled the negotiators on the issue.

“Zanu-PF said you cannot compro­mise where the people had spoken ade­quately,” he said.

During the collation of data, he said, Zanu-PF legislators had been consistent that they should use the quantitative analysis as opposed to qualitative.

“From the beginning, the methodol­ogy had always been problematic, whether to use quantitative or qualita­tive analysis, we agreed to use both and the moment you use both you would be compromising the other,” he said.

[???? - MrK]

Cde Mangwana said Copac threw away several issues that had been made clear by the people during the outreach owing to the negotiation.

Cde Mangwana accused MDC-T co-chair Mr Douglas Mwonzora of refus­ing the publication of the national report.

He said the MDC formations were rejecting the Zanu-PF draft because they were afraid of facing the truth.
Mr Mwonzora, however, defended the decision by Copac to deviate from the people’s views in certain instances saying there were some inadequacies that could only be dealt with through negotiation.

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“Negotiations were unavoidable. We had to negotiate for a number of reasons, for example, negotiations were as a result of inconclusiveness of the data, the infor­mation contained gaps, there was also the need to benchmark the Constitution to suit the world-class constitutions and the contradictory data collected, to mention but a few,” said Mr Mwonzora.

*
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He said it was strange that Zanu-PF sought to discredit the Copac draft, which it had appended its signature to.

Mr Mwonzora said the general standard was that a national report would be produced after the full process.

He, however, added that an interim report could be made available at this stage.

VIEW THE ZANU PF

National Constitutional Assembly chairman Professor Lovemore Madhuku urged the three political parties in the GPA to conclude the constitutional process and allow people to ultimately decide in a referendum.

“This process must come to an end and let the people make the decision at the referendum. Referendum is the best way to end the constitutional debate.
“This country is in a serious state and it is the responsibility of everyone to deter­mine the destiny of this country,” he said.

MDC99 leader Mr Job Sikhala, MDC spokesperson Mr Qhubani Moyo and Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions secretary-general Mr Japhet Moyo were also part of the panel.

Labels: CONSTITUTION, COPAC, MUNYARADZI PAUL MANGWANA

posted by MrK @ 5:54 PM