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A desperate window-dressing act
National Constitutional Assembly (NCA)
September 23, 2009

The NCA rejects as window-dressing, hypocritical and inadequate the government's press release of 18 September 2009 in which Advocate ET Matinenga claims that the Global Political Agreement (GPA) prescribed constitution-making process has been rationalized to address issues of efficiency, capacity and inclusivity of the Parliamentary Select Committee on constitution-making.

If anything the so-called rationalization of the GPA prescribed constitution-making process is an attempt to hoodwink unsuspecting Zimbabweans into believing that the inclusive government has taken into consideration concerns raised by the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) and Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) over the exclusive, undemocratic and unworkable nature of the GPA prescribed constitution making process. Notwithstanding the purported addressing of issues by the inclusive government's principals, the constitution making process remains under the control of politicians. The "people" are still out of the equation. The so-called Management and steering committees are by and large made up of politicians from three political parties that make up the inclusive government. The inclusion of Professor P Makhurane and Dr Hope Sadza into the Steering committee is nothing but a desperate attempt to sanitize what is essentially a defective constitution making process.

There is also talk of the establishment of an "independent secretariat". This is, in essence, a high sounding nothing designed to mislead the people of Zimbabwe into believing that the GPA prescribed constitution-making process has been altered for the better. Yet, the GPA prescribed process remains an affair of three political parties. As long as it remains under the stewardship of three political parties with vested and often conflicting interests, the GPA inspired constitution-making process will never be efficient and inclusive. As the NCA has always maintained, it will always be difficult if not impossible to get a democratic and people-driven constitution from a process that is primarily motivated by the quest to promote selfish political interests. The time has come for the people of Zimbabwe to stand up to the inclusive government in demand for a democratic and people-driven constitution making process.

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