Zim plans constitution change

HARARE – Zimbabwe’s government has proposed changes to the constitution in a move critics say will damage mediation efforts by South Africa to help end the country’s political and economic crisis.

The changes would allow for joint presidential and parliamentary polls in 2008 and amend the rules for electing a new president should the post become vacant during the presidential term. Zimbabwe’s official Herald newspaper on Saturday said the government had published a legal notice of the proposed changes, expected to be brought to parliament next month for debate.In March, President Robert Mugabe, 83, Zimbabwe’s sole ruler since independence in 1980, won endorsement from his ruling Zanu-PF party to stand for re-election in polls due next year, despite policies widely blamed for an economic meltdown.The ruling party proposed then that it would amend the constitution to give parliament power to choose a new president should the sitting one resign, die or be unable for any other reason to serve a full term.The present constitution says a new election 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.Zanu-PF has the two-thirds majority in the legislature it needs to push through the constitutional changes without support from the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).Pressure group the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), which wants broad-based reforms, said the proposed amendment would effectively scupper mediation efforts by South African President Thabo Mbeki.Earlier this year, Mbeki began mediating talks with Zimbabwe’s political parties to try to bring about political stability and stave off economic collapse.”This puts paid to Mbeki’s initiative.Zanu-PF is going ahead with its plans regardless of the fact that some of the issues contained in the proposed amendment are under negotiation,” said NCA leader Lovemore Madhuku.Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told the Herald the constitutional amendments had nothing to do with the talks.”We are going ahead with that process as government.It has no relation to the Mbeki initiative.In fact, the initiative should not cloud our state programmes,” Ndlovu said.Opposition groups want a complete overhaul of the constitution before next year’s polls.Mugabe says his government abandoned plans for a new constitution when it lost a national referendum on a draft treaty in 2000, which the MDC said favoured the ruling party.The government’s latest proposed amendments include expanding the lower house of parliament to 210 members from 150 and establishing a nine-member Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, which critics dismiss as an empty ‘sweetener’.The MDC accuses Mugabe of hanging on to power through vote-rigging and a repressive regime.It says Zimbabwe needs radical reform to ease a crisis that has left the country with the world’s highest inflation rate of over 3 700 per cent and crippling shortages of food, fuel and foreign exchange.Mugabe says the economy is being sabotaged by Western opponents led by former colonial power Britain who want to oust him for seizing white-owned farms for landless blacks, a programme critics say has ruined the key agriculture sector.Nampa-ReutersZimbabwe’s official Herald newspaper on Saturday said the government had published a legal notice of the proposed changes, expected to be brought to parliament next month for debate.In March, President Robert Mugabe, 83, Zimbabwe’s sole ruler since independence in 1980, won endorsement from his ruling Zanu-PF party to stand for re-election in polls due next year, despite policies widely blamed for an economic meltdown.The ruling party proposed then that it would amend the constitution to give parliament power to choose a new president should the sitting one resign, die or be unable for any other reason to serve a full term.The present constitution says a new election 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.Zanu-PF has the two-thirds majority in the legislature it needs to push through the constitutional changes without support from the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).Pressure group the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), which wants broad-based reforms, said the proposed amendment would effectively scupper mediation efforts by South African President Thabo Mbeki.Earlier this year, Mbeki began mediating talks with Zimbabwe’s political parties to try to bring about political stability and stave off economic collapse.”This puts paid to Mbeki’s initiative.Zanu-PF is going ahead with its plans regardless of the fact that some of the issues contained in the proposed amendment are under negotiation,” said NCA leader Lovemore Madhuku.Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu told the Herald the constitutional amendments had nothing to do with the talks.”We are going ahead with that process as government.It has no relation to the Mbeki initiative.In fact, the initiative should not cloud our state programmes,” Ndlovu said.Opposition groups want a complete overhaul of the constitution before next year’s polls.Mugabe says his government abandoned plans for a new constitution when it lost a national referendum on a draft treaty in 2000, which the MDC said favoured the ruling party.The government’s latest proposed amendments include expanding the lower house of parliament to 210 members from 150 and establishing a nine-member Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission, which critics dismiss as an empty ‘sweetener’.The MDC accuses Mugabe of hanging on to power through vote-rigging and a repressive regime.It says Zimbabwe needs radical reform to ease a crisis that has left the country with the world’s highest inflation rate of over 3 700 per cent and crippling shortages of food, fuel and foreign exchange.Mugabe says the economy is being sabotaged by Western opponents led by former colonial power Britain who want to oust him for seizing white-owned farms for landless blacks, a programme critics say has ruined the key agriculture sector.Nampa-Reuters