/ 2 July 2010

Constitutional football kicks off

Robert Mugabe could be president of Zimbabwe until he is 97 years old if he has his way in the country's protracted struggle for a new constitution.

Robert Mugabe could be president of Zimbabwe until he is 97 years old if he has his way in the country’s protracted struggle for a new constitution.

A 10-month delay in launching the constitution-making process ended last week after Mugabe, who has ruled for 30 years, gave the Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (Copac) the green light to go to the people for their input on a new deal.

But observers fear that the chances of reaching an agreement on a new constitution are being threatened by political party politicking and a lack of funding to consult the people meaningfully. And, with elections due next year, violence also poses a threat to the constitutional moves.

Since 1979 the country’s supreme law has been the Lancaster House agreement. Now the 90-day survey is meant to canvas the views of everyone in all Zimbabwe’s 10 provinces.

But the process has become the latest battlefield for control of the country.

“It’s not a coincidence that all the negotiators of the different parties in the unity government are represented in the management committee that oversees Copac, as there are real agendas being pushed there,” a senior government source close to Copac said.

What the constitution should say about the presidency is highly controversial. Zanu-PF wants full executive powers for a president with a maximum of two five-year terms. So, with no outright successor to Mugabe in the party, and the Zanu-PF committee set up last year to manage internal divisions over the succession now dissolved, Mugabe could be president until he is 97 if the party succeeds in its constitutional wishes.

But the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC faction wants executive power to be shared between a president, Cabinet and prime minister (an office Zanu-PF wants abolished). It also wants to disqualify anyone who has already held office for two terms and to include a clause to impeach a sitting president — obvious tilts at Mugabe.

Civil society groups support the capping of presidential powers. Dumisani Nkomo, the Matabeleland Civic Society Consortium spokesperson, said: “There is a real need for checks and balances on presidential powers so as to prevent ‘legitimate dictators’.”

But a lack of funding for establishing the feelings of the people has emerged as a serious threat.

The MDC accuses Copac of “gross incompetence and logistical bungling”.

Equipment for the exercise, such as computers, audio kits, braille and video cameras, had not arrived as the exercise got under way, despite a $43-million budget allocation for the constitution-making process and $21-million from the United Nations Development Programme.

Copac co-chairperson Douglas Mwonzora said the lack of funding had resulted in poor publicity for the survey. “We don’t have the funds to flight advertisements in the media and the little we got from donors is meant to cover other pending costs,” he said.

The state-owned Herald newspaper reported that MPs involved in the constitution-making process were haggling over daily allowances, wanting $75, more than the $25 offered by Copac, whose rapporteurs receive $100 a day.

Copac’s limited finances have already seen it reduce the 1 000 police officers meant to provide security during the surveying of the people to 350. Mwonzora said this week he was “not sure if that number had already been deployed” but expressed confidence that there would be no violence. “The people have learned how to tolerate one another,” he said.

But a legislator who spoke on condition of anonymity said youth militia linked to Zanu-PF would “mobilise and shoot down the constitution-making process by supporting Mugabe and telling people to make demands for a president only”.