|
Back to Index
This article participates on the following special index pages:
New Constitution-making process - Index of articles
Thematic Committee Stage - Constitution Watch
Veritas
May 13, 2011
Thematic
Committee Stage
During this
stage of the constitution-making process opinions collected during
the public outreach are to be compiled into reports following the
seventeen themes decided on by the Parliamentary Select Committee
on the Constitution [now known as COPAC] as part of the methodology
of the constitution-making process. It was on these seventeen themes
that the talking points taken to the public outreach meetings were
based.
The outreach
teams should have been selected and trained in July 2009 and were
scheduled to start and finish work six weeks later. Unfortunately,
interparty disputes and the lack of acceptable budgeting systems,
which led to donor funding delays, resulted in the outreach only
starting towards the end of June 2010 - 11 months late. The outreach
meetings were completed in November last year.
Article 6 of
the GPA
states the draft constitution should be ready within three months
of the completion of the public consultation process – this,
together with all the other delays, would have seen a draft constitution
completed before the end of February.
The further
delays since the conclusion of the outreach have been attributed
to problems with the data uploading which was supposed to be completed
in January. COPAC said that some data did not find its way onto
the central computer because of a technical problem. There were
also reports of tampering with or destruction of data – all
denied by COPAC. In addition it was discovered that data submitted
via the COPAC website questionnaire for the Diaspora and written
submissions, had not been included and this was only completed in
mid-March. The longer the process took, the more funding had to
be sourced. Another delaying factor was the incarceration of MDC-T
COPAC co-chair Douglas Mwonzora on criminal charges from 15th February
to 12th March.
Training
of Thematic Committees
The seventeen
thematic committees and their supporting staff of technical advisers
and resource persons were called to Harare and put up at various
hotels in order to attended a workshop on Tuesday and Wednesday
3rd and 4th May at the Rainbow Towers Hotel on how their work would
proceed. The objective was to train them in how to analyse the data
from the outreach process and prepare their reports, and how to
resolve disputes arising in the course of their work. Attempts to
find out from COPAC exactly what methodology was to be used to convert
the computer data to reports failed – for reasons that subsequently
became apparent.
Deputy
Chairpersons from Civil Society fall by the wayside
It had been
stated right at the beginning of the constitution-making process
that civil society would be represented in the chairing of the thematic
committees. This representation was then diluted by deciding that
the chairpersons would be MPs but that civil society would put forward
names for deputy chairpersons. A selection was made, but those selected
were then kept waiting almost eighteen months. It now seems that
civil society choices, no matter how many people they represent,
have been dropped in favour of “teamleaders” chosen
as representing the three parties. For example, Emilia Muchawa,
chairperson of the Women’s
Coalition and Executive Director of Zimbabwe Women Lawyers’
Association, found that she had been dropped as deputy chairperson
of the Women and Gender thematic committee. And Raymond Majongwe,
Secretary-General of the Progressive
Teachers’ Union, listed in 2009 as deputy chairperson
of the War Veterans thematic committee, this week pulled out of
the committee when he discovered that he was now regarded as representing
the interests of a political party rather than civil society.
It has taken
Veritas ten days since the training workshop started on 3rd May
to get the new lists of “teamleaders” who have replaced
the committee chairpersons and deputy chairpersons, and the members
of the thematic committees, as the COPAC secretariat during this
time refused to release them.
[For a process
that is supposed to be “owned and driven by the people”
[GPA, Article 6] there has throughout been extraordinary difficulty
in accessing information from the Secretariat.]
Work
of Thematic Committees interrupted by disputes
On Thursday
5th May, the day after the training workshop, the thematic committees
began work, again at the Rainbow Towers Hotel, starting with the
data from the meetings conducted in Mashonaland West and Matabeleland
North. The aim was to complete work on 19th May. This week, however,
when the committees began to tackle the data from Manicaland, differences
between ZANU-PF and the MDC formations erupted, with ZANU-PF insisting
on a quantitative approach [.i.e. to count up how many times an
opinion had been expressed and the most frequently expressed views
to go forward as what the people want].
The MDC formations
objected to using a quantitative only approach and said there must
also be a qualitative approach [ i.e., the essence of all suggestions
should be put forward for consideration]. [Note that at a meeting
on 11th April the COPAC management committee decided that analysis
of the results of the outreach meetings would be conducted on a
qualitative basis.] In view of the many problems associated with
the outreach recercise the MDC felt very strongly that account must
be taken of the quality of the data coming in – e.g., whether
it was informed opinion or mere parroted repetition of a party political
election slogan having little to do with constitutionalism; and
whether it resulted from bussing-in or intimidation, or other opinions
being shouted down [an example being the repeated shouting of “government
critics should be “killed”]. In other words, they wanted
the atmosphere of each consultative meeting to be factored into
the analysis. They also wanted allowance to be made for the uneven
rural/urban consultation. There were far more meetings in rural
areas – three per ward – than in the more densely populated
urban areas, where there was normally only one meeting per ward.
As the number of meetings held did not accurately reflect the very
different rural/ urban population numbers – a quantitative-only
approach would mean rural opinions being unfairly weighted against
urban opinions.
[Comment: It
is surprising that in the ample time available to it COPAC had not
spelled out the methodology for the work of the thematic committees
sufficiently clearly to exclude the sort of thing that happened
this week.]
Meetings
stop
As a result
of the dispute there were no properly-constituted meetings from
Tuesday onwards, although ZANU-PF members staged a UDI and ostensibly
continued to work. The COPAC management committee was called in
and met on Wednesday – this committee consists of the GPA
negotiators, the Minister of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs
and the COPAC co-chairs – but was unable to resolve the dispute
in the time available to it. It was left to the Select Committee
members to continue efforts to avert suspension of the process and
sending participants home.
Meeting
resumed on Friday and work to start all over again
After a day
of crisis meetings on Thursday 12th May, the Select Committee managed
to reach an agreement resolving the dispute. Once again the agreement
reached was in the nature of a party political compromise. The agreement
permitted the seventeen thematic committees to resume their work
on Friday afternoon after three wasted days. To make up the lost
time the committees may have to work longer hours, unless funding
for extra days can be sourced. The terms of the agreement were captured
in a press statement released at 12 noon on 13th May:
COPAC
press statement issued 13 May 2011, 12 noon
[signed by all
three COPAC co-chairpersons – Mangwana, Mkhosi and Mwonzora]
The Constitution
Select Committee, COPAC, would like to advise that the disagreement
over data analysis methods which led to an impasse has now been
resolved. Stakeholders to the process agreed to move forward as
follows:-
There is agreement
to collapse three meeting points in a rural ward into one in order
to equalize the disparity between urban and rural wards and because
the process is ward based.
Where there
was more than one meeting in an urban ward, or in any other ward,
these shall also be collapsed into one.
1.
The analysis of the rural data will be done separately from the
urban.
2.
Frequencies or preponderance will not be the absolute determinant
of popularity or importance of an agreed concept.
3.
Both quantitative and qualitative approaches will be applied in
data analysis.
3.1
Where we use both quantitative and qualitative methods of analysis,
none shall take precedence over the other.
3.2
In the qualitative approach, key attributes will include the following:
- attendance
- gender
- youth
- disability
- atmosphere
of meeting
4.
All the reports already done shall be revised to take into account
the new qualitative dimensions.
COPAC would
like to reassure all Zimbabweans that the constitution-making process
is on course and would like to allay fears that have arisen from
reports that are circulating.
Veritas
makes every effort to ensure reliable information, but cannot take
legal responsibility for information supplied
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
|
