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Zimbabwe Briefing - Issue 95
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition (SA Regional Office)
October 10, 2012

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Plan To Usurp Copac A Recipe For National Disaster

Media reports that indicate that Principals in the inclusive government met and agreed to side-step Copac and take over the constitution making process are disturbing to all sundry. In as much as some of the media reports are sensational, a finer balanced analysis would convincingly reveal that:

(1) The Principals, President Robert Mugabe, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara met without Welshman Ncube and discussed the possibility of usurping Copac in the process

(2) the Principals could not substantively agree without seeking legal advice

(3) As a consequence, the Principals invited Patrick Chinamasa and Erick Matinenga to seek legal opinion

(4) The legal advisors could not agree as Chinamasa was for whereas Matinenga was unequivocally against the usurpation of Copac.

The sober conclusion one draws is that the Principals did not conclude the matter. However, one cannot deny the Principals harbour ambitions to stage a Copac 'coup' but nothing is cast in stone yet. However this is a clarion call for democrats to apply pressure on the powers that be visa vis the democratic route to a new democratic constitution. The advice should be clear that what the Principals are seeking to do is a clear abrogation of the GPA and an affront to Parliament and other stakeholders. They are literally trying to rewrite and renegotiate the GPA. For the GPA in article 6 is clear that:

1) the draft Constitution and the accompanying Report shall be tabled before Parliament within 1 month of the second All Stakeholders Conference;

2) the draft Constitution and the accompanying Report shall be debated in Parliament and the debate concluded within one month;

3) the draft Constitution emerging from Parliament shall be gazetted before the holding of a referendum;

4) a referendum on the new draft Constitution shall be held within 3 months of the conclusion of the debate The above procedure gives no space for Principals to amend the constitution. Why then should the Principals seek to subvert this process? It is obvious that the person who is initiating this idea is President Robert Mugabe, who finds himself in a quandary, under fire from hardliners within his party after he connived with the Copac team to embrace reforms in the draft constitution. President Mugabe needs a gateway to amend the draft and factor in changes to appease his radical wing and manage factional politics in his party ahead of the crucial general election. Being the Machiavelli that he has always been, the President is masking dishonesty, trying to collectively lobby the Principals that they will get an equal opportunity, as the executive, to revisit certain aspects that they might not be happy with in the Copac draft constitution. This might be tempting to other Principals but the consequences will be disastrous for the nation. If there are matters of principle that either Principal is not happy with, which are against the values and aspirations of their political parties, they can use the Parliament, where they have enough representation to push forward their positions. That will be more transparent, more democratic and in line with the GPA under the guarantor of SADC. Anything threesome is synonymous with broad-day-light coup and risk threatening the constitution.

It should be clear to the Principals that the constitution making process is a hot political potato and to get where it is; there has been a lot of compromise from various quarters. The Principals must therefore show collective leadership and wisdom in dealing with this very delicate process. Their intentions to usurp the Copac process will threaten the constitution making process and erode its legitimacy to the marrow.

The trio must realise people have compromised to let Copac drive the process, albeit deep seated concerns and people have compromised to participate for the sake of taking the nation toward the next step in the transition but that is not meant to signal people can be taken for granted. Any attempts by the Principals to take people for granted might be the final nail on the constitution. Some stakeholders like the NCA have since abandoned this process. Civil society will be frustrated, SADC will frown and other political parties will charge on, setting the stage for the 'constitution waterloo battle'.

It is time for other more reasonable Principals to reign in the President and alert him that the days of unilateral executive powers and authoritarian spasms are gone unless the other Principals are prepared to be tainted with the same brush and definitely history and posterity will judge them harshly. However, with enough civic and regional political pressure I believe common-sense and logic will prevail over suicidal positions.

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