Leave select committee alone: Analysts

While this statement is shared by most Zimbabweans, regardless of race, creed or tribe, crafting this national bible is proving to be more complicated than what many people might have thought.
The constitution-making process has been reduced into a slanging match between Zimbabwe’s political formations, civic society and Parliament, which is divided right through the middle over the issue.
Whether the final document would be endorsed by the people come the referendum, still remains to be seen.
But as the debate about the constitution-making process gets more intense, analysts are calling for a redefinition of the role of those spearheading this process to make it more democratic.
Political commentators and lobby groups alike suggest that the Parliamentary Select Committee, tasked with gathering input from the general citizenry, should be given enough leeway to maneuver.
They said the current situation where politicians are determining the pace, mode and even the contributions of this all-important process, does not inspire confidence.
The director of the Women’s Trust, Luta Shaba, said the select committee should be left to carry out its mandate of consulting citizens to get their input on what they want included in the new constitution.
Shaba said the debate on the constitution-making process had gone beyond talk of it being people-driven or not and should now focus on synthesising input from the generality of Zimbabweans.
“We should respect the role of the select committee,” Shaba said.
“The select committee has a mandate and should be given space to carry out that mandate. Their mandate is to consult the broad spectrum of citizens in Zimbabwe and come up with a draft. We should not get bogged down on which draft should be used. People should forward their various documents, even in their entirety, to the select committee and let it do its work.
“Allow civic society and various other interest groups to have an input into the process, but this must be done through the Parliamentary Select Committee. The work of the select committee should not be pre-empted.”
Shaba’s view is in sync with the committee’s call for autonomy.
Last month, the co-chair of the committee, Paul Mangwana, wrote to the principals of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) — President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara — complaining about the vested interests of the various groups including the Non-State Actors Forum, after the non-governmental organisation paid 500 of the 4 000 delegates to the first All-Stakeholders Constitutional Conference held in Harare last month.
Mangwana then asked for autonomy of the select committee to avoid manipulation.
The 25-member select committee is co-chaired by Mangwana (ZANU-PF), Douglas Mwonzora (Movement for Democratic Change-MDC-T) and Edward Mkosi (MDC-M).
Political analyst John Makumbe echoed the same sentiments and argued that Zimbabwe cannot afford to go for another election under the current Lancaster House Constitution of 1979 that has been amended 19 times.
“The process should go ahead smoothly and the Parliamentary Select Committee should keep rolling,” Makumbe said.
“It’s unfortunate that there is so much controversy over the Kariba Draft. The making of a new constitution is a provision of the GPA and it opens a major door for the way forward for the country. If that fails, all other things would fall away. We can’t afford to go to elections using the Lancaster House Constitution because we know what that means. Violence will explode. Let the parliamentary committee do its work. Money should be found for the process to go ahead.”
ZANU-PF and the smaller faction of the MDC want the Kariba Draft, signed by the three main political parties to the GPA of September 2008, to be used as the basis for crafting a new constitution while the larger MDC-T says it should not be used as the only focal point.
And on the sidelines, civil society organisations, led by the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), are agitating for what they call “a people-driven process” and vowing to scuttle the constitution-making process should the Kariba Draft be used as the reference point.
The Kariba Draft is the final version of the contentious document signed by ZANU-PF’s Nicholas Goche and Patrick Chinamasa, MDC-T’s Tendai Biti and MDC-M’s Welshman Ncube, who are ministers in the inclusive government.
Owing to sharp differences over its usage, Zimbabweans were recently treated to a circus when the rival parties clashed at a local hotel over the Kariba Draft and pandemonium broke out.
There was confusion on who exactly started the fight that saw government officials flee the venue of the conference.
While the process resumed without incident the following day, observers said it must be understood from the onset that political parties do not form the entirety of Zimbabwean citizens.
If one uses the number of voters as a yardstick, the question herein would be how many people voted in last year’s harmonised polls vis-à-vis the entire population? The answer is probably 50 percent.
If so, who then is going to represent the other 50 percent? This is where the autonomy of the Parliamentary Select Committee comes in.
Other analysts said an independent committee reminiscent of the referendum committee of 1999-2000, which had about 400 commissioners, should be set and given the mandate and resources to assist in crafting a new constitution for the country.
Zimbabwean academic and publisher Ibbo Mandaza said: “The ideal situation would be to have an independent commission, which should be national in outreach reminiscent of the one in 1999. But the MDC in 1999 refused to participate. We should have a national forum to encourage independent minded people to lead the process. Clearly, the constitution-making process has become a platform for a variety of interests. It’s now mired in confusion. It appears that the biggest problem is how to get consensus. How should everyone be included?”
Constitutional law expert Lovemore Madhuku, leader of the NCA, argues that it is not the role of Parliament to spearhead the constitution-making process, but to enact laws, which are subordinate to the constitution prescribed by the people.
“It is contrary to fundamental notions of good governance for the ruling politicians of the day to seek to dominate the process of constitution-making under the guise of being representatives of the people,” Madhuku said.
The NCA chairman said there should be full participation from all interested citizens and politicians must not interfere in the process.