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| Macho man-the powerful Mugabe, maintains his 'powers' |
By Blessing Vava
It took them close to three
years, a whooping 45 million United States dollar to come up with a 164th
paged document which they are saying is a proposed draft constitution for
Zimbabwe. The so-called final draft is nothing but a copy and paste job from
the Kariba Draft constitution crafted by
the three parties in the GNU.
The ‘final’ draft,
subsequently a product of the COPAC
Management team which comprise negotiators from the three parties in government,
the same people who crafted the first Kariba constitution in 2007. Indications
coming out so far are that many Zimbabweans are not happy with the COPAC draft and it does not require a rocket scientist to tell you that come the referendum,
the COPAC draft will be rejected resoundingly
because it deviates from the views of the people. After spending huge sums of
money, 3 years only to copy and paste the Kariba draft is scandalous and playing
with the minds of millions of Zimbabweans whose desire is surely that of seeing
a prosperous nation with good laws and an accountable government that respect
their will. The politicians are taking
us for granted and getting away with it, they are not even ashamed, in shona we
will say ‘havana nyadzi.’
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Mugabe chats with Zanu-PF secretary for Transport and Welfare Cde Nicholas Goche (left) and Copac co-chairperson Cde Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana at the party’s headquarters before the start of a Politburo meeting in Harare yesterday
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The two MDCs have already endorsed the draft urging
Zimbabweans to vote YES in the referendum, with only ZANU PF so far saying they
are agreeing with 97% of the contents pressing for more amendments to suit
their needs. Finally the draft will
sail through in parliament after the final changes to be made by the principals.
Fascinatingly, three of the principals
namely Mugabe, Ncube and Mutambara were rejected by the people of Zimbabwe in
the March 2008 elections, funny how unelected people who Zimbabweans did not
vote for obviously for lacking confidence in these individuals will now
have a final say on the country’s
supreme law. It will be very interesting to see both ZANU PF and the two
MDCs campaigning for the YES vote during
the referendum, that should show Zimbabweans how selfish politicians can be in
protecting their interests. For their interests they unite. No Zimbabwean will
forget the luxurygate scandal where the same politicians bought
themselves top of the range luxury vehicles when the lives of citizens has not
improved. With a population faced with
starvation, lack of clean water, electricity, good education and health for the
poor.
Strange how those who questioned the rational of purchasing of these luxury
vehicles at the expense of improving service delivery and paying civil servants
were considered enemies of the state. Politicians
defended themselves saying the vehicles were in synchrony with their new
acquired status. The politics of opulence is their game, that is what the draft
is essentially about. With a bloated
national assembly with 210 members plus 88 senators a notion which the people
of Zimbabwe have been critical of. Again
all these members will be demanding hefty allowances and luxuries as we have
witnessed with the current.
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| Rejected by the electorate-MDC President Ncube and DPM Mutambara |
It is about power and wealth,
nothing for the people. Initially they
came to the people to ask for their views, later on they dump those views and
negotiate their positions and again they will be shamelessly coming to the people to urge them to vote for
a document which contains not their views but of politicians. How selfish? That
is one of the reasons until now we have not seen the National Report which
contains critical information and statistics of what Zimbabweans said during
the outreach phase.
For the MDCT their satisfaction with the draft despite its flaws is
regrettable to say the least. From my own analysis, as a party that is
confident of winning the coming polls they are not seeing the flaws of the
draft simply because they would also want to enjoy the same powers once in
total control of government. It is all about power nothing else. Shame how
people easily forget. Theirs is not to democratise this country as they purport
but simply to be in power and replace ZANU PF so it now seems. Remember what
the late ZANU PF legal affairs secretary Edison Zvobgo, who introduced
executive powers in the constitution as he hoped to take over from Mugabe and
enjoy the same as he harboured presidential ambitions. In the draft nothing has substantially changed with regards to the powers of the
president as we are being made to believe. If anything the powers have been
expanded only the term limits which have been reduced. Not long ago they (MDC)
were complaining about too much executive powers vested in the presidency and
this time their deafening silence on the issue raises a lot of questions than
answers. The issue of an all powerful president is one of the reason why Mugabe
is still in power using those powers to abuse Zimbabweans.
For that reason Zimbabweans
should reject the draft, it does not matter whether its Mugabe or Tsvangirai
who will be in power the point is we do not want an all powerful executive
president, the experience with Mugabe opened our eyes and thus we rejected the
Chidyausiku draft. The myopic thinking by the MDC is dangerous, they think that
simply because ZANU PF is somehow appearing as if they are against the draft
then automatically it makes the draft a good document. A wrong perception
indeed, the same thinking they had during the GPA, when they thought that
Tsvangirai had executive powers, only to be reminded regularly that Mugabe is
the Head of State and Government and Commander in Chief of the defence forces.
And the GPA has proved Tsvangirai as a ceremonial senior Minister premier with
no power. In this draft, I believe that it is ZANU PF that benefitted the most,
they managed to block issues like real devolution, diaspora vote in
the final draft and these are some of the critical issues which the MDC were clamouring for. The constitution is a
very important document that should live beyond individuals it should be a
contract between the governor and the governed something that is missing from
the COPAC draft.
Essentially the debate on the draft especially by the ZANU PF pressing for further amendments is alarming. Very
surprising that they are now meeting to debate the draft and make positions but
in the first place each party had
negotiators and these negotiators should have been constantly updating their
party on the progress. The principals should have had an idea on the contents
of the document before it was delivered to them and now we are being told the
principals will have a final say to the draft. It’s really a circus.
In this long process we had
been hearing reports that the principals, politburo etc were being briefed on the
process time and again. We wonder what they were really doing, was it not
scrutinising? Are they afraid of their initial judgement or is it ZANU PF feels they lost in the negotiations or rather they are just playing politics? Something
fishy here. They should have been
instituting checks and balances
periodically not to wait this long to start scrutinising the draft again.
Lastly I am flabbergasted by
COPAC’s 2nd All stakeholders conference needing 2 million dollars, a
meeting which they are saying will give the public an opportunity to ‘interrogate’
the draft, but perceptibly they will not be in a position to change its
contents. The question which a lot of Zimbabweans are asking is why are they
wasting such an amount on a process that will not change the draft rather than
just subject that constitution to the referendum so that people decide if they
want it or not. Besides, of the 2000 delegates proposed by COPAC only 200 will
not be coming from the three main parties so why waste our time?
Blessing Vava is a blogger
from Chipinge. He can be contacted on blessingvava@gmail.com
Thank you very Blessing for such an eye opener, you know when i started reading your article i was reminded of the great Franz Fannon who in his book, The Wretched of the Earth wrote, "African leaders are after consumption and not production", which he further refers to as the pitfalls of national consciousness. So it is true cde that in as much as we have this crop of leadership, it will be very difficult for us to have a democratic and people driven Constitution as the leaders will always try to protect their ill begotten and selfish interest. As one writer once wrote, 'the problem with Africa is with its leadership.'
ReplyDeleteInteresting read Vava....a few well meant comments though. Why dont you take us a step further and introduce a real national debate based on facts. You dismiss this draft as a copy and paste job, can you substantiate through use of examples. You reject An all powerful executive, this point too will be well aided by illustrations from the document that you dismiss. I think this issue deserves meaningful national debate, and opinion leaders like yourself all us the people clear reasons why you want us to go against the draft, based on its flaws - which you need to articulate,instead of just saying it has too many flaws. You owe us alternatives, instead of just instructing or advising us to reject this document, tell us also what happens after we do or what the plan B is, and what the impact of how we vote of this wil be in relation to the late delivery point of this transition which is the next election. The article is a a good Read Blessing, but so far,I think it doesn't move beyond platitudes and slogans. Give us a real meaningful debate B, based on facts, unless of cause that is not where your interrest lies.
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