Who exactly is in charge of the country the top three or the bottom
The disruption of the first Constitution reform all stakeholders conference confirms earlier observations on this portal that Constitutional reform has become the single most critical national agenda on the table of the coalition government.
Saviour Kasukuwere, Patrick Zhuwawo and Joseph Chinotimba led Zanu PF supporters in song and dance meant to provoke chaos and order in the Constitution reform process leading to suspension of the business of the first day of the conference at the Rainbow Towers Hotel Conference Centre on Monday 13 July 2008.
If the disorderly behaviour that ensued had been instigated and led by an MDC politician as the compromised State media would like us to believe, we would be by now reading or hearing that the ring leader has been arrested and brought before the courts for breaching the law codification clause on maintenance of other people’s rights to peace and order.
But I digress. The issue is why are the Zanu PF supporters against the Constitution reform initiative if at all they are? Alternatively why did the Zanu PF protesters disrupt the Conference that their party leader endorsed in the GPA on 15 September 2008 that legitimised his hitherto disputed Presidency of the country?
President Mugabe must bear the brunt of criticism over what happened at the first stakeholders’ conference. His statement that the Parliamentary Select Committee spearheading the constitution reform process must anchor its processes on the Kariba draft sent the wrong cue for his supporters’ behaviour towards the process.
They now believe that the process is not necessary since the Kariba draft is already in existence and what is required is to initiate the process to formalise its adoption as the country’s constitution.
His party structures are mobilising grassroots supporters that the stakeholders’ conferences are joint MDC-T and NGO’s initiatives to oust President Mugabe from power using donor funds with the sole purpose of writing a new constitution that would reverse the land reforms that have seen them access vast swathes of fertile agricultural land that they are unable to economically exploit due to sanctions.
This of course is a total fabrication of the facts as the reason for the new constitutional order has and will always be to prescribe how the nation’s rulers should exercise power on behalf of the people in an accountable manner.
There is no proven scientific formula that can be used to formulate National Constitutions. It was therefore irresponsible of the President to state that Constitution making has never been a mob exercise but rather an exclusive government prerogative when history behind that thinking clearly informs the nation that politicians will manipulate constitution making processes to advance sectarian party political agendas rather than regulate accountable national governance.
But are Zanu PF supporters so ignorant that they would buy into a false fear of their leadership that a Constitution can be used to dethrone Mugabe when it is them that are on record as stating that the ballot cannot prevail over the bullet in matters of determining who rules the country?
How could they suddenly believe that the current Constitution processes will lead to President Mugabe’s ouster from power and a reversal of their ill-gotten farmlands ownership when he will remain Commander in Chief of the bullet wielding security forces?
The Zanu PF grassroots have been really hurt by the current economic policies of the coalition government that have closed many of the avenues they had become accustomed to plunder and pillage the economy while the majority languished in abject poverty and debilitating scarcity of goods and services they used to easily access through their party.
It is that sense of loss that drives them to the edge as they yearn for the glorious days of free everything from their party.
It is beyond their imagination that there is life after Mugabe. They are not stupid.
They are just real. The physical and psychological pain suffered by none Zanu PF adherents in the past decade is what the adherents are experiencing at a time when those that have gone through the worst of Zanu PF misrule are experiencing a change for the better in their economic wellbeing.
The Zanu PF supporters realise that at present they are covered against their criminality which may very well be revisited in the likely event that Zanu PF looses the envisaged elections that must follow the end of the Constitution reform initiative.
But that is only part of the problem. The real fear is how the beneficiaries of the well documented impunity that characterised land reforms will explain away their wealth accumulation in a government environment where laws are applied without reference to political party affiliation.
That is why the Zanu PF supporters are prepared to do anything in the name of President Mugabe for they are under no illusion as to the shielding powers he has over their crimes.
Indeed they like all else crave for a home grown constitution as long as that constitution will not allow any other party than Zanu PF to preside over national affairs.
All the Zanu PF supporters want is a constitution that allows them leeway to keep Mugabe in power through established rigging methods and or violence.
The Kariba draft appears to favour that position in terms of the Presidential powers therein and that office for now is occupied by a Zanu PF nominee who will use the powers to guarantee its retention by the party no matter what the ballots will say.
Why has it been possible for the Zanu PF party to retain power after obvious electoral losses?
During 1999-2000, the Zanu PF dominated government capitulated to national demands for a home grown constitution to replace the politically necessitated 1979 Lancaster House constitution.
The outcome failed the ultimate test when it was put to referendum and the nays exceeded the ayes.
The government was embarrassingly left stuck with a Constitution it had condemned as dysfunctional.
The Zanu PF government refused to revisit the process after it was followed by the “defeat” of Zanu PF in the March 2000 parliamentary elections that came immediately after the referendum.
The assertion that Zanu PF was defeated at the March 2000 Parliamentary polls yet it remained in charge of the governance of the country does not make sense unless one examines how this was achieved.
The country’s constitution allowed overlapping Legislative and Presidential terms such that defeat of a party in Legislative contests did not automatically deprive it of executive authority vested in the Presidency if the Presidency was held by its candidate.
In addition to that the electoral process was managed by the Presidency through an Electoral Commission staffed by his loyal appointees who were widely criticised for rigging the process in favour of the President’s party.
The Presidency wielded draconian powers from a Constitution that allowed him to rule by decree and avoid checks and balances that would normally be expected to come from the Legislature and Judiciary pillars of governance in a Constitutional democracy.
To illustrate the extent of the Constitutional powers bestowed on the President and how they were used to circumvent the electoral processes and outcomes it is pertinent to note that the President;
had the right to appoint all heads of national commissions tasked with management of national affairs and recommending principal officers to serve in key government positions such as Permanent Secretaries of Ministries, Commanders of Security establishments, Chief Executives of Parastatals, Reserve Bank Governor, Attorney General and Chief Elections officers;
was the Commander in Chief of the Defence Forces;
had the power to reject appointments of recommended Judges and Justices, Permanent Secretaries, Ambassadors, Board Members and Chief Executives of National Institutions and Parastatals;
had powers to make binding decrees through use of emergency powers that would be legally binding for six months without reference to anyone
had sole powers to appoint and disappoint Cabinet ministers and their deputies as well as Provincial Governors;
had powers to dissolve Parliament at any time ;
had sole powers to declare war and peace and
had powers to elect 30 of the 150 Legislators in Parliament by way of direct appointment of persons of his choice.
These powers devolved from the Lancaster House constitution as amended by successive Zanu Pf governments since 1980.
In addition to their constitutional grounding the powers were backed by a strong armed enforcement backup which the President could fall back on if anyone decided to refuse to abide by the country’s laws and decrees he would have issued.
These are the very powers President Mugabe relied on to deny MDC the 2000 electoral victory it had scored against Zanu PF. That precedent was to be extended to the 2001 Presidential elections and was perfected over the years to deny the MDC electoral space and possible victory in the 2005 Elections whose results were used to re-introduce the discarded Senate.
Attempts by President Mugabe to manipulate the Constitution by amending it to defer Presidential elections due in 2008 to 2010 to harmonise the Presidential term with the legislative term were strongly resisted by the opposition political Parties and within Zanu PF where party leadership succession battles have been raging for nearly a decade following the party’s 2000 constitutional referendum defeat.
Rather than satisfy the national quest for a home grown constitution, the numerous amendments the successive Zanu PF governments made to the Lancaster House constitution only served to increase the appetite for a substitute constitution.
A collapsed economy from mismanagement, impunity and measures taken to bar Zanu PF leadership from enjoying free global travel to mitigate effects of the collapsed economy resulted in Zanu PF’s defeat in the March 2008 elections the president had been forced to stage through internal pressures augmented by SADC intervention in the country’s political impasse emerging from previous disputed elections dating back to 2000.
Again as had been the norm from 2000 Zanu PF refused to be pushed out of the government arguing that the ballot could not prevail over the bullet in determining who should preside over national affairs.
The refusal by Zanu PF to accept the 2008 election results that went against it and its Presidential candidate pushed the Constitutional reform agenda to the forefront of the political dispute in the country leading to the Global Political Agreement (GPA) on 15 September 2008 wherein the two dominant political parties were joined by an insignificant political faction to form a coalition government whose term is hinged on the Constitutional reform initiative.
There is widespread belief in the country and throughout the region that the politics of the country can be sorted out if the feuding parties address the issues they believe are central to the impasse gripping the country and hindering economic progress.
But sadly though events on the ground seem to suggest that unless complimentary reforms are instituted in military operations in the country the Constitution reforms will count for nothing other than international sympathy with the downtrodden Zimbabwe electorate.
The fact that after the disturbances at the all stakeholders’ conference none other than MDC supporters were taken into custody when clearly the rowdy deviants were Zanu PF supporters speaks volumes about what will happen in the event Zanu PF refuses to abide by the new constitution regardless of how well meaning its clauses will be.
Simply put a good constitution without committed political and military enforcement will count for nothing.
If the MDC hopes to topple Mugabe from the presidency through the Constitution it will be surprised when the time comes and the free and fair elections are won but Zanu PF again refuses to vacate government seats of power.
As the constitution reform moves forward the MDC must make some painful decisions about how it will have to deal with such a possibility.
Unless the party can devise means with which to enforce the new constitution the likelihood of a long overdue change in regimes will not materialise in practice.
The MDC can win as many so called free and fair elections as it likes under any constitutional order but it will not dislodge Zanu PF unless the military command is reformed and reoriented to be a national rather than party loyal force.
Such reorientation of necessity demands that current command structures be dismantled and new leadership of the forces be appointed to serve the nation and not Zanu PF alone.
The silence on this issue is not healthy at all. The positions held by Constantine Chiwenga, Perence Shiri, Paradzayi Zimondi, Happyton Bonyongwe and Augustine Chihuri must now be discussed by the government and agreement reached as to how they will be eased out of the government and replaced by other professionals willing to distance themselves from partisan political party dogma in support of national ethos that will be encapsulated in the new constitution order.
By avoiding discussion of these key players in upholding our constitutional democracy, the government is not doing the nation any favours.
It only serves to show the nation that the government does not have control over its law enforcement and security wing which raises fears that the government may actually be a puppet of the military establishment.
In which case the constitution will be not worth the paper on which it will be written.
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