The Zimbabwe government’s plan to change the Constitution ahead of 2008 elections undermines efforts to broker an end to political turmoil in the African nation, the country’s main opposition leader said on Wednesday.
President Robert Mugabe’s government has proposed a Bill that would pave the way for joint presidential and parliamentary polls next year and amend the rules for electing a new president should the post become vacant before an election.
The Bill is expected to be debated in Parliament in July.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), said the amendments were ”pre-emptive and contemptuous” of South African President Thabo Mbeki’s bid to bring the MDC and the ruling Zanu-PF to the bargaining table.
Mbeki took on the mediation role in March at the request of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which met at a summit to discuss the crisis in Zimbabwe.
”The message that Zanu-PF is sending out is loud and clear. It is oblivious and blind to the SADC negotiations,” Tsvangirai told journalists in the capital, Harare. He noted that the MDC and the ruling party had not agreed on an agenda for the talks.
”It is not simply ready for genuine dialogue,” he said, adding that the MDC would continue to press for dialogue with Zanu-PF but would also look at other options to press Mugabe’s government to reform.
Part of the constitutional changes include giving powers to Parliament to choose a new president should the incumbent die, resign or be unable to serve a full term. Currently a vote should be held within 90 days of a president leaving office.
Critics say the changes would allow Zanu-PF, which dominates Parliament, to pick the president.
The lower house of Parliament also would be expanded to 210 members from 150.
Tsvangirai, who was among dozens of opposition members arrested and beaten in a violent government crackdown earlier this year, repeated calls for a new constitution to guarantee free and fair elections next year.
He also urged SADC leaders to continue pressuring Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s sole ruler since independence from Britain in 1980, to change his ways.
The 83-year-old Zimbabwean leader has rejected calls for a new constitution since his government lost a national referendum on a draft treaty in 2000, which the MDC said favoured the ruling party.
Mugabe says the MDC is being used by London to oust him from power as punishment for his policy of seizing white-owned farms for redistribution to landless black Zimbabweans. — Reuters