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By Violet Gonda
24 December 2009
Dr Lovemore Madhuku, the chairman of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), has said the solutions in helping Zimbabwe improve should not depend on the resolution of outstanding issues in the unity talks. He said it is more important to fight for the opening up of democratic space.
Giving a review of the past year Madhuku said 2009 was a mixed bag of both positive and negatives for Zimbabwe. The civic leader said there was progress on the economic front, where the adoption of the multi-currency system brought some stability and relief to people. He said the main political rivals seem to have found a way of working together and there is some progress there.
“But on the negative side there is not much progress in terms of the broader agenda of the past ten years. The past five to ten years required us to get to a very different Zimbabwe – very democratic, free, prosperous and so on, but we are very far away from that.”
Madhuku warned: “The signals in 2009 were such that we might see the current politicians wanting the status quo, which we have now, to be a permanent feature of our political system and that is a very negative development.”
In February this year ZANU PF and the two MDC formations formed the inclusive government, but the full implementation of their Global Political Agreement has been hampered by bickering over outstanding issues. Crisis negotiations over the deadlocked issues adjourned this week and are expected to resume in January. While it has been reported that 16 out of 27 issues have been resolved, there is still no movement on the really key issues, such as the swearing-in of MDC official Roy Bennett; the appointments of Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono and Attorney General Johannes Tomana, the swearing in of provincial governors, and a number of other issues.
It remains to be seen to what extent these issues are going to be dealt with. At a joint press conference with his partners in government in Harare on Wednesday, Robert Mugabe showed he has no intention of doing anything about some of the issues in dispute. For example, he said the appointment of an individual should not derail the work of the coalition government saying: "This huge Government of three parties yotadziswa naTomana?"
One of our listeners wrote in and made the point that there is a real chance that the two MDC formations could be swallowed up by ZANU PF, saying they felt that Tsvangirai was being deceived and was too quick to accept half measures.
The listener wrote: “Even at school, if one got 16 out of 27 there would not be much cause for celebration especially if the student/s avoided compulsory questions i.e. Gono, Tomana and Bennett as well as provincial governors. Tsvangirai’s ten months in government may be credited with food in the shops and less violence, the truth is that he has given more help to Mugabe’s Zanu-pf than the people who suffered as a result of supporting him. He has done this by signing anything put in front of him regardless of the consequences. He will regret this”
Madhuku said: “Our future should not be dependent on what issues that Mugabe and Tsvangirai have decided not to agree on.” He predicts the talks will continue and that at some point the politicians will say they have agreed, even if they have not have solved any of the fundamental issues that they put on the table.
“And that might require us to scrutinize both ZANU PF and the MDC – to scrutinize whether the so called talks, the so-called deadlocks are worth our efforts as a country,” he added:
The civic leader urged Zimbabweans in 2010 to look at all the issues from all the angles and not take a partisan outlook about the inclusive government. He said in 2009 close to half the pupils failed to write their 0’level examinations because of unaffordable exam fees. “That is not acceptable and we cannot in this case just blame some people, we should blame the entire framework that is running the country, and ask if the government is delivering.”
Meanwhile, the National Constitutional Assembly has reiterated that it will not participate in the government sponsored constitution making process. The parliamentary select committee spearheading the constitution making process, said the public meetings on a new constitutional draft will begin on January 12th 2010. But Madhuku said: “The NCA is not part of this defective constitution making process, so we will not be in those committees.”
The pressure group said it will continue with its programmes of educating Zimbabweans on the importance of a constitution and ‘why we should write it in our own way’.
Madhuku said they will not interfere with the government-led process but will be there to criticise the shortfalls of it and prepare the public to reject any constitution that is not acceptable to Zimbabweans. He said: “So we are very happy that they are starting, so that we get to the end of this matter - that is why we welcome the January meetings. We welcome them so that we close these chapters of politicians wanting to impose constitutions and we are urging Zimbabweans to reject them, that is what we will do.”
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