Back to Index

Constitutional crisis in the National Constitutional Assembly
Violet Gonda, SW Radio Africa
May 26, 2006

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news260506/nca260506.htm

A showdown is looming at the annual general meeting of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) Saturday over the term of office of Lovemore Madhuku’s chairmanship.

Despite the human rights activist’s fearless and tireless efforts to fight and expose the dictatorship under Robert Mugabe his term of office is about to expire. He is now being accused of seeking to unconstitutionally amend the NCA constitution so he can seek a third term as chairperson of the organisation.

Madhuku said it is by popular demand that he has been told not to step down. He said that given the political climate in the country it would be foolhardy to change the leadership at this stage. But his deputy Douglas Mwonzora said it is foolhardy on Madhuku’s part to think that he is the only person who can lead the struggle. He said, "The revolution that we are in goes beyond mere personalities and there is a clear constitutional provision that people must serve two terms."

The NCA is a coalition of civic and human rights groups, student and labour movements, churches and opposition political parties fighting for a new and democratic constitution in Zimbabwe.

Dr Madhuku has served two terms as NCA chairman and if he is successful at Saturday’s AGM he will serve another five-year term. This crisis in the NCA has been received with mixed reactions and has raised questions as to what extent pro-democracy groups in conflict areas can adhere to democratic principles. The NCA has been treated with hostility by the government ever since it was formed in 1997.

Some analysts say with this in mind the likelihood of ZANU PF infiltrating the pressure group at this point in time is highly likely.

But others like Mwonzora ask, "If we tamper with the terms of office of respected democratic institutions like the NCA, how will we be able to criticise the present regime?"

It’s reported that Mwonzora was particularly against the move by Madhuku because he has personal interests. When asked if he was eyeing the position for himself? He responded, " I am criticising this on the basis of principle. I don’t care who becomes chairman. It doesn’t have to be me but what we need to do is we need to abide by the rules that the people gave us and that is the constitution. Tampering with the constitution at this stage will confuse the people of Zimbabwe, will make it easy for ZANU PF to criticise us. We always say in our meetings that ZANU PF has amended the constitution a record 19 times since independence to accommodate Mugabe. We cannot then amend the constitution to accommodate personalities."

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP