Lifespan of GNU up for extension?

Then, the DPM said: “Actually, the agreement indicates that a new people-driven constitution should be crafted and after that we sit down and say are we ready to fight again in the elections. If we are not ready, the agreement indicates that we can go for five years or more.”
At the time, the DPM’s interpretation of the GPA found no takers.
Mutambara was seen more as an opportunist, desperate to stay in the political ring by avoiding a verdict at the polls. With nearly a year gone after the country’s three main political parties signed the GPA, the spectre of fresh elections after the expiry of the coalition’s two-year lifespan is causing sitting Members of Parliament and Senators sleepless nights.
The fear of losing fresh mandates to keep their seats in the august House has led some MPs into reviving debate on whether the current lifespan of the inclusive government should be extended to five years instead of two years as suggested at the signing of the power-sharing agreement in September 2008.
Those supporting the extension of the lifespan of the GPA have been buoyed by revelations by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission that there is no money to conduct elections in constituencies that have fallen vacant due to either death or conviction of some of the MPs/Senators over what critics refer to as trumped-up charges.
The current Lancaster House Constitution provides for the conduct of fresh elections after a five-year term. Should current efforts to craft the supreme law of the land succeed the country will have to go for fresh elections before the expiry of the five-year term in line with the new constitution.
Naturally, some of the sitting lawmakers would have to fall by the wayside.
Paul Mangwana, one of Parli-ament’s Constitutional Select Committee co-chairman, recently gave some rare glimpses into the desire among politicians from ZANU-PF and the two Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) formations to have the lifespan of the government of national unity (GNU) extended to five years.
Mangwana who doubles up as the ZANU-PF legislator for Chivi Central, told journalists at a recent workshop held in Mutare that the majority of the MPs and Senators across the political divide want to serve their full term of five years, than to have their tenure cut short by three years.
He warned that linking the process of making a new constitution to elections was attracting resistance from the legislators which could scupper efforts by the Constitutional Select Committee to replace the Lancaster House constitution that has been amended 19 times.
“I have engaged them (legislators) across party lines; they still think that we were elected for five years and they want to serve for five years,” he said. “That is what is on their minds.”
Mangwana pleaded with journalists not to link elections to the constitution-making process if they wanted parliamentarians, who have the final say in the adoption of the new constitution, to support the exercise.
“Please help us journalists. If you link the process of making a constitution to elections, you are attracting resistance to the making of a new constitution. Nobody, and I must stress this emphatically, nobody wants to be removed from power. Power is so sweet that no one wants to leave it. I also don’t want to be removed from Chivi Central constituency,” said Mangwana.
“So if you continue to remind me that I am writing my own removal from power, the chances of me voting for a new constitution will be diminished. This is across party lines.
“So don’t continue to remind them, although we know that it’s going to happen, elections will be held in terms of the new constitution. But why remind one another all the time? When people are married they don’t want to be reminded all the time the husband comes up and says, ‘You know what, I can divorce you’ or the wife comes up and says, ‘You know what, we can divorce and share the property equally.’ All the time we are talking about divorce. It removes confidence in that marriage,” Mangwana added.
Mangwana’s advice is clearly in sharp contrast with the widely held belief that the duration of the inclusive government was two years, with the specific objective of writing a new constitution for the country before fresh, free and fair elections are held.
Useni Sibanda, the coordinator of the Christian Alliance of Zimbabwe who has been closely monitoring the coalition since its inception in February, said tinkering with the lifespan of the inclusive government would have to be re-negotiated by the three political parties that are party to the GPA.
Sibanda said this would need the concurrence of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU) — the guarantors of the GPA.
“But I think some of the parties in the GPA don’t want elections soon as there are not sure of the outcomes of the polls,” he said.
“Recent poll surveys indicate some of them will fare badly if elections were to be called today. In suggesting for an extension to five years, some of these parties want to gauge their chances and see if there have mustered any gains during the period of the coalition government. There is a consensus among one or two of the parties that two years is not enough to recoup losses suffered in March 2008,” added Sibanda.
Sibanda urged SADC to guard against the violation of the GPA.
He said: “SADC should take a stand against the willy-nilly changing of the pact. We can’t continue changing goal posts to suit the political needs of three political parties.”
Some observers have rightly or wrongly suggested that politicians from the two MDC formations were now enjoying the perks and other incentives that come with their new responsibilities in the inclusive government and would not want the uncertainty associated with the elections.
Takura Zhangazha, the national director of the Media Institute for Southern Africa (Zimbabwe Chapter), disagreed, citing the fact that the coalition which is battling to contain an industrial action by teachers and other civil servants, was technically bankrupt.
“There is no gravy train to talk about as there is no gravy in this coalition government. The government is broke,” said Zhangazha.
“The bankruptcy of the government is being used as an excuse to prolong the lifespan of the present government but this is a negation of democracy. It is assumed that the people of Zimbabwe want to be represented by the three political parties. In the interest of democracy, where there are by-election they should be held to allow people to choose their own representatives.” Zhangazha said  suggestions to extend the lifespan of the inclusive government to five years as indicated by Mangwana and others in the GNU were purely driven by political survival.
“ZANU-PF is comfortable with President Robert Mugabe remaining executive president while Morgan Tsvangirai remains a Prime Minister who does not chair cabinet,” Zhangazha said. He concurred with Sibanda that the three parties were wary of contesting polls any time soon.
“They have little options but maintain the current status quo. ZANU-PF especially is worried of elections too soon while on its part the MDC, especially the MDC-T, is equally worried by the potential occurence of violence in the wake of the mayhem that happened in the last harmonised elections,” said Zhangazha.
In the run-up to the presidential election run-off the MDC-T claimed that more than 200 of its supporters were killed in cold blood allegedly by ZANU-PF agent provocateurs and state security agents.President Mugabe won the one-man presidential election run-off after Tsvangirai pulled out citing violence.
Due to the resultant political stalemate, an AU summit held in Egypt last year recommended that a government of national unity be formed in Zimbabwe consisting of the three main political parties.
The GPA, brokered by former South African president Thabo Mbeki, was then signed in September 2008 although the inclusive government was only inaugurated in February this year because of disagreements between the protagonists in the Zimbabwe crisis.