|
Back to Index
Hurungwe and Kariba community workshops
Zimbabwe
Election Support Network
September 04, 2012
ZESN conducted
two community workshops in Hurungwe North at Karuru Township and
Kariba Nyamhunga Methodist Church on the 28th and 29th of August
2012, respectively. The Karuru workshop was followed by a soccer
match which was attended by over 200 people. The sporting activities
are now part of ZESN's peace and citizen participation drive
seeking to give citizens an opportunity to compete in sporting activities
in a peaceful environment.
Participants
for the workshops and the sports day were drawn from the various
political parties, churches and youth organisations. The total attendance
for the workshops was 111 with 70 participants for Karuru and 41
for the Kariba workshop. The workshops focused on discussing peaceful
citizen participation in elections, the Electoral
Amendments Bill and the referendum. The Draft
constitution was also discussed
at length and various issues relating to the draft were interrogated
by the participants these include:
- The issue
of citizenship. Although the participants acknowledged the changes
that are proposed in the draft they argued that citizenship was
still too limited and needed to be broadened and a debate ensued
on dual citizenship with arguments both for and against it.
- Participants
felt that Zimbabwean laws are discriminative and that the government
has not done enough to improve access to basic service including
registration of voters.
- In Kariba
participants expressed their eagerness to participate in the impending
constitutional referendum with one participant saying, "Even
if there are hundreds of drafts provided for during the much awaited
referendum, they will mobilize each other to vote".
Both in Karuru
and Kariba participants expressed concern over the conditions under
which elections are held and how some national processes are conducted
which they said do not provide for individuals to freely express
themselves. The participants also called for adequate reforms to
some structures of government in order for them to fully serve the
general populace in a transparent manner.
The participants
at both workshops expressed gratitude towards ZESN's work
and called for more activities in their areas.
Visit the ZESN
fact sheet
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
|
