Zimbabwe’s main opposition party reached an agreement on Tuesday with the government on the adoption of a Bill that paves the way for joint presidential and legislative elections next year.
In a surprise move announced in Parliament, senior members of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said they would not try to block legislation to amend the Constitution under which the electoral boundaries will be changed, the number of MPs increased and parliamentary elections brought forward by two years.
“As a confidence-building measure we have made a bold decision not to stand in the way of the constitutional amendments,” Thokozani Khupe, deputy leader of the main MDC faction, said in Parliament.
“This should be regarded as a first step in resolving the national crisis,” she added.
Welshman Ncube, a senior figure in a rival MDC faction, said the agreement would help heal the divisions in the crisis-ridden Southern African country, which saw attacks by the security forces on MDC leaders earlier this year.
“For those of our compatriots who love our beautiful country, some might be alarmed by this decision. To some the MDC might appear to have abandoned its principles on the constitutional reforms,” he said.
“Zimbabweans are faced with a national crisis. We might differ but we agree there is a crisis. Somewhere along the way we lost each other. We need to find each other. This is our attempt to say ‘let’s reach out to each other’.”
The MDC had previously denounced the proposed changes to the Constitution as an attempt by veteran President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF party to effectively fix the result of next year’s ballot.
Clear message
South African President Thabo Mbeki has been leading regional mediation efforts between the government and opposition in the countdown to the elections and is understood to have met with senior MDC officials in Pretoria last week.
Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa sought, however, to play down any idea that an agreement had been reached with outside influence, telling lawmakers that it “should send a clear message that Zimbabweans are their own liberators and brook no interference in their internal affairs”.
“This amendment will demonstrate a level of political maturity and I pray that our new-found unity of purpose will endure,” he added.
The announcement came at the start of a second reading debate on the constitutional amendments that had been expected to be a major showdown between government and opposition.
Mugabe, the 83-year-old who has ruled Zimbabwe since independence in 1980, is seeking a seventh term in office at a time when the country is grappling with the world’s highest rate of inflation.
Official figures announced earlier in the day put the annual rate at 6 592,8%, and economists say that the real rate may be several thousand percentage points higher.
Mugabe has previously accused the MDC of being a stooge of his Western critics, in particular former colonial power Britain.
The MDC had initially indicated it would boycott the elections unless there were guarantees that the process would be free and fair.
Mugabe and his inner circle were slapped with sanctions by the West after he allegedly rigged his 2002 re-election.
The agreement comes on the same day that a new report by an influential think-tank said the time had effectively run out to ensure a fair ballot.
The International Crisis Group also said that a recently completed voter-registration programme had triggered plausible charges that the government was “in effect rigging the polls in advance”. — AFP