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"Kariba Draft was just a stop-gap measure" - Biti
Community Radio Harare (CORAH)
August 05, 2009

The Kariba Draft that was agreed by the country's three main political parties was produced as a stop-gap measure in order to mitigate against many political problems that were facing Zimbabwe at that time, says Tendai Biti who is the MDC-T Secretary General and one of the three people who drafted this controversial document.

Speaking at a public meeting held in Harare last night, Biti said the Kariba Draft was signed in 2007 in order to ensure that the 2008 Harmonised Elections were held under a new constitution and thereafter a thorough people-driven constitution building process would follow.

"The draft constitution that we negotiated at Kariba was not intended to be the permanent national constitution but a temporary document that would create an environment necessary for the holding of free and fair elections. We should remember that Zimbabweans were concerned about the manner in which previous elections had been held and how election results had been manipulated by ZANU (PF). So, we had agreed that the Kariba Draft would be adopted and then elections held and after that there would be a people-driven constitution making process.

"We never agreed with ZANU (PF) that the current constitution making process would be based on the Kariba Draft. This document is the one that was later referred to when Constitutional Amendments number 18 and 19 were later made," Biti said.

Biti's comments come in the wake of President Mugabe and his party's insistence that the current constitutional reform process should be anchored on Kariba Draft because this was agreed by all political parties in the GPA. This has thrown the current process into confusion as ordinary people are not aware which root the whole process is taking.

Last week, there were adverts in the media that suggested the new constitution would be affixed on the Kariba Draft. Titled, The Place and Role of the Kariba Draft Constitution in the Global Political Agreement, the advert said "parties to the GPA agreed that the Select Committee would use the Kariba Draft to gauge which provisions were acceptable or not acceptable to the people of Zimbabwe who would be accorded unrestricted rights to accept or rejects any provisions in it."

But yesterday the co-chairperson of the Parliamentary Select Committee on the new constitution, Douglas Mwonzora told civil society activists and journalists that the secretive Kariba Draft would be used just like any other drafts in the country. "We will not use the Kariba Draft as the sole reference point but will use all the available drafts in the country. If Zimbabweans say they want the Bill of Rights as said in the Kariba Draft or want the Bill of Rights as enshrined in the NCA Draft, we will allow them to choose what they want from many such drafts that we have in the country," insisted Mwonzora.

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