A look at both sides of the emotional senate debate

By Tererai Karimakwenda
03 November 2005

Zimbabweans have for weeks now been trapped in a very passionate debate regarding participation in the senate elections or boycotting them. The stakes were raised even higher and emotions increased when the issue split the opposition party in two after the MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai insisted they would not take part. Tsvangirai set aside a national council vote that was narrowly in favour of participation, and this created 2 camps that are still sparring over the issue.

Most of the submissions we received at SW Radio Africa support Tsvangirai and the boycott, but there have been complaints that the other side in favour of the senate race has not been presented well by the media, and the public does not understand reasons for participation. Harare North MP Trudy Stevenson said she believes in the interests of democracy and free access to information, both sides should be given equal play.

Stevenson believes that the MDC’s consultations were carried out as nothing but an overt effort at indoctrination of the "No to Senate" view, and that the other side of the story never saw the light of day since the beginning of this debate. She told us that once Tsvangirai as the president made his anti-senate position known publicly, it became difficult to present the other side because our culture defers to the leader. Stevenson said all structures should have been informed of all the arguments both for and against participation before making their decision. So we decided to explore both sides with her.

First we look at Arguments for participation:
- Participation will maintain the MDC's strongholds
- Non-participation will deny people the right to keep out ZANU PF
- Winning more than one-third of the seats in Senate will prevent ZanuPF from unilaterally amending the Constitution
- Non-participation may create in the minds of the electorate the notion that the MDC has capitulated
- Participation will exacerbate the divisions within ZANU PF
- Participation will keep MDC structures focused on fighting ZANU-PF
- Participation could enable the MDC to place key people in Parliament

Arguments against participation:
- Participation will be hypocritical
- Participation will legitimise the Senate and this process of amending the Constitution
- Participation will not remove Mugabe
- Participation will be expensive and drain the party of resources
- Participation will draw the party's attention away from holding Congress

So there we have the arguments for both sides. The public will decide on voting day by the numbers who turnout. But what will the MDC do as a party. Will they find middle ground and remain united? The management committee that met on Monday announced that the whole national council will be meeting on Saturday, but there are reports that the pro-senate camp may not show up.