Matinenga says Zimbabwe heading for a second GNU

Posted by on Thursday, March 14, 2013 in GPA, Zimbabwe politics | 6 comments

Minister Eric Matinenga

By Violet Gonda
14 March 2013

Zimbabwe may be heading for a second government of national unity, Minister of Constitutional Affairs Eric Matinenga revealed Thursday.

He was speaking during a wide ranging panel discussion on the constitutional referendum on the Hot Seat programme with National Constitution Assembly chairman Dr. Lovemore Madhuku and Ozias Tungawara, Director of the Africa Governance Monitoring and Advocacy Project.

Matinenga said the current Lancaster constitution, with amendment no. 19 that created the inclusive government, will continue in the event the new charter is rejected.

“From my assessment we may be heading for another GNU… If one has to look at our particular environment and what we can and cannot do then that has to be looked to in a serious manner,” Matinenga said.

He said he is confident that the majority of people will vote yes for the new constitution.

Tungwarara said there is a misplaced perception that a Yes vote for the draft constitution will deliver a credible election. He believes this will not happen for a number of reasons, including the fact that there are few fundamental reforms, which were supposed to work in tandem with the constitution making process, under the Global Political Agreement.

“So the political environment that is hostile to democratic engagement still exists.” The analyst said there won’t be sufficient time to undertake the necessary reforms before the general and presidential elections due in the next six months.

“So the points that he (Matinenga) raises about the judiciary members being publicly interviewed and that if there are disputes you will have impartial people presiding – this will not happen. So we are likely to have again a contaminated electoral process which the constitution will not impact on, and where that is going to leave us is anybody’s guess. It could be another 2008.” Tungwarara said.

Madhuku, whose NCA has been consistently campaigning for a No vote at the referendum, said it is obvious that the three political parties in the inclusive government are actually working on having a second inclusive government.

“The GNU is quite evident when you get all the political parties campaigning for a Yes vote at the referendum and when all three political parties are agreeing that the time given for the people is completely irrelevant even though people wanted more time. They have not even complained about all the (negative) things that have been happening.

“So which ever party wins the elections, I think, would want to stay, in the name of stabilisation, which is why there is that clause that says in the next ten years we will not have a presidential by-election in the event of the death of the president.

The NCA chairman believes none of the political parties can win an outright majority vote in the forthcoming polls.

You can listen to the full referendum debate on the Hot Seat programme, where the panellist also discuss some of the contentious issues in the draft constitution: Listen here to Hotseat

To contact this reporter email [email protected] or follow on Twitter

  • mike hondo

    great news if you are a politician the gravy train will chugg on and on and on wooo hooo! this is what the poeple want!

    • Chimbwidos Warvets

      You see, some of these guys used to be ‘tea boys’ for the late Ian Smith and Bishop Abel Tendekai Muzorewa who have now turned out to be the political leaders of today. With the trappings and trimmings of power they have enjoyed for the last five years, they can not think of any other life outside the political realm. Vamwe vavekuenda kunotsvaka zvikwambo or literally some of them are now visiting the witch doctors or fortune tellers to get charms to enable them get selected to positions of authority or elected to political power again although the majority of them have not served the people they purported to represent adequately. We do not need any of them but a new crop of politicians.

      • mike hondo

        yes i agree entirely with your comments youv hit the nail on the head , it seems people want positions of power but then fail to represent the people and just or do any good other than enrich themselves and labour movements dont make great governments just look at the labour party in the uk they have bankrupted us and then gave all the money to the banks, who voted for that? and still they claim they are for the people, that is why is the word hondo in my sudeneham because im at war with bad governments that just enrich themselves.

        • super mondo

          the people wont give up even if they are betrayed by mdc.

  • wilbert_mukori

    Tungwarara said there is a misplaced perception that a Yes vote for the draft constitution will deliver a credible election. He believes this will not happen for a number of reasons, including the fact that there are few fundamental reforms, which were supposed to work in tandem with the constitution making process, under the Global Political Agreement.

    Tungwarara is absolutely right there; many people will vote yes on Saturday
    thinking and believing there will be no violence in this year. PM Tsvangirai and his MDC friends have gone out of their way to deny or down play the reality of the 2008 violence being repeated.

    Worse still, both Zanu PF and the two MDC factions have stifled all meaningful discussion on what would happen if people voted NO. A NO vote would force
    the democratic reforms to be implemented – MDC would hate to have to admit they failed to get the reforms implemented and Mugabe would rather die than to have them implemented. Implemented the reforms and you dismantle the dictatorship, the underlying institutional weakens, that have allowed violence to happen.

    Of course if people understood the linkage between implementing the reforms,
    ending the culture of violence and that the only way to force the implementation
    of the forms was by rejecting this Copac constitution; there in no doubt the NO
    vote would win the day on 16 March 2013.

    So the rushed referendum and the lack of a free and dynamic media,
    orchestrated by both Zanu PF and MDC, have been used to fool the people to act to undermine their own best interests! The people trusted Tsvangirai and MDC in this, it will be a great shock when they discover, which they will do soon enough when the Zanu PF juggernaut is rolled out and is crashing them like ants, they were betrayed.

  • Chimbwidos Warvets

    It is an emphatic ‘NO’ comrade Matinenga. There will be no need to hold a costly general elections if these are the sentiments of the MDC officials who are now too scared of losing the election. If these are the sentiments of the MDC, then perhaps comrade Tsvangirai should call for a press conference where he will tell the nation and the world that it is no longer necessary to hold elections. The country could save millions of dollars with its multiplier effect which will then go to serve a worthy cause.
    But the whole idea of holding an election is to choose a political party whose leader will govern the country. We have a bloated cabinet that needs to be streamlined when only one political party that wins the election leads the nation. We do not need another GNU which has been a drain to the economy.