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| COPAC co-chairpersons during a press conference |
By Blessing Vava
The much hyped COPAC 2nd
‘All Stakeholders’ has come and gone with nothing much coming out, rather the
parties maintaining their positions with regards to the constitution making process which has taken too long to
complete than anticipated. Unlike the 1st Stakeholders conference in
2009, which was marred by violence and chaos, this one was rather ‘peaceful’
with no incidence of chaos reported, something commendable in our political
landscape which has been riddled by polarisation and intolerance. The conference
was nothing much to write home about and now that it has gone just like one of
the many money spending ventures, time
wasting with no value added, no progress, to give it a better phrase it was a
useless meeting typical of what the
inclusive government has been holding since its inception.
We have the final say-Mugabe
It was not surprising that the meeting yielded
nothing, apart from attempting to fulfil lost timelines and values of the GPA.
A closer look at how the conference was structured would give us a clearer
picture of its irrelevance. Firstly, the GPA is not clear on the purpose of the holding of the indaba, its rather
vague, Section (c) (iv) the draft Constitution shall be tabled within 3 months of
completion of the public consultation process to a second All Stakeholders
Conference.’’ Copac representatives ended up saying that the meeting is for
recommendations and not amendments. One would ask who will be giving recommendations
in this instance? From the onset the process has been in the hands of the three
principals, the draft we have is a combination of positions from the same to
their parties. The delegates to the conference were also largely drawn from the
three formations except a few from civil society who begged for their inclusion
or the other way round. So it is like
setting an examination for yourself and marking it at the same time. It surely doesn’t work. From its framework
Article VI in its very nature is exclusionary of political parties and other
players outside parliament. Section 6.1says... ‘’The Parties hereby agree: a) that they
shall set up a Select Committee of Parliament composed of representatives of
the Parties whose terms of reference shall be as follows: (i) to set up such subcommittees chaired by a
member of Parliament and composed of members of Parliament and representatives
of Civil Society as may be necessary to assist the Select Committee in
performing its mandate herein; They made it clear from the start that the
role of civil society was to assist at the behest of COPAC as may be necessary,
meaning that the process is for parties in government and no one else outside
those confines have a say. You can only be invited at their mercy. Pity some
civil society organisations still had faith in such a process were their participation was at the behest of political
parties. Some colleagues of mine from civil society confided that they were
accredited under political parties making their contributions to this meeting
highly compromised. They allege that a day before the
conference all those accredited by MDCT including civic organizations had to
meet at harvest house were accommodation and chapters for thematic committees
were being allocated. They were chanting party slogans and telling people what
to say during the conference, including people from civic society who were
present. When getting into the conference there was a list were one had to
check for his/her name, there was no list for civic society, all the names of
civic society members appeared on the MDC-T list, the discussions during the
thematic sessions ended up being a contest between the parties in government
rather than objective analysis.
What happened to the principles and ideals of the National Working
People’s Convention? What happened to what civil society agreed in the Zimbabwe
Peoples Charter? These are clear positions which have the capacity to carry
this country forward and this is what civil society should be fighting for and
not to act like a chameleon which changes its colour based on its surroundings.
Whereas COPAC/GNU will be continuing with their anti-people crusade there are
some civic groups who will still be begging to be part of such processes
abandoning their role as civics.
To show unscrupulous nature of COPAC - the
time allocated to analysing the draft was rather dubious, how can people
analyse 176 paged document written in legal language, English for that matter in
one and half hours? Not all delegates at the conference passed through
the law school, COPAC should have tabled
a simplified version of the draft in all languages if they were really genuine.
In
summation, the process was a charade, it was exclusive to the three parties and
their principals, no other political parties or interest groups were invited as
equal partners to participate can do for their nation is to dismiss the dining
and wining canvassed as an ‘all stakeholders,’ it was just a meeting of the
parties in GNU. Equally, the greatest flaw of it all is that the principals
will have the final say as President Mugabe put it clearly during the opening
of the conference, he is honest unlike the other leaders in the GNU who keep
lying to the whole nation that the process is people driven.
