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GNU barking up the wrong tree
Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU)
July 05, 2012

The Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU) is alarmed that political parties in the GNU have made an ill-advised decision to increase seats in parliament. Whilst there is need for gender equality in all government bodies, parties in the GNU are going about ensuring this in the wrong way.

Currently, the legislature is monolithic in comparison to the size of our country. To add sixty more seats will result in heavy drainage of financial resources that can be channeled towards education, health and other vital sectors.

According to plans for enlarging Parliament, 60 female MPs will be seconded by political parties on a proportional representation basis in line with the number of seats the parties would have garnered in elections. This means that these sixty legislators will be MPs with no constituencies. Already the country has over thirty non-constituent MPs in Parliament appointed by the president and heads of political parties in the GNU; to then add sixty more to this number will result in a perversion of the purpose of parliament which is to represent citizens from various constituencies.

If political parties are serious about gender equality they should implement quotas for contesting parliamentary elections in their parties that promote the afore-mentioned notion.

If parties in the GNU persist on including this ill-thought and ill-fated arrangement in the draft constitution it is guaranteed that the latter is seriously going to be mobilized against during the referendum stage.

Noting the absurd and avaricious demands that are made by parliamentarians from time to time and being aware of the huge drain that the financial needs of the current Legislature effects on national coffers, there is no way that ZINASU, can in good conscience allow this plan to proceed.

If the afore-mentioned plan somehow contained provisions for introducing parliamentarians that have a definite capacity to better the quality of legislation and debate in parliament it would have been better. For if truth be told our parliamentarians are known for propelling some of the most ridiculous arguments, which include among others, advocating for legalization of marijuana, attempting to legislate laws that ensure that women dress shabbily to lessen the preponderance of HIV/AIDS and arguing that men should take drugs that cause them to want less sex as a means of combating the afore-mentioned disease. Given this background, to then superfluously add more parliamentarians into the legislature without ensuring ways in which the quality of their contributions can be enhanced is highly retrogressive.

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