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Weekly Media Review 2011- 48
The Media Monitoring Project Zimbabwe
Monday November 28th - Sunday December 4th 2011
December 09, 2011

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Constitutional reform suffers further delays

Much of the mainstream media reported news from the Constitutional Parliamentary Select Committee (Copac) that the remaining phases of Zimbabwe's constitutional reform exercise required at least another six months to complete up to the staging of a national referendum on the constitution.

This news - made at a Copac Press briefing announcing the start of the constitutional drafting process (ZTV, 5/12, 8pm and The Herald & Daily News, 6/12) - follows the decision by Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, not to make specific provision for national elections in his 2012 national budget presentation.

According to the media, Copac expects the drafting process, which should have started last week (the Chronicle, 1/12), to last 35 days; meaning that the draft can only be completed in early January, barring any further delays. Thereafter Copac envisages holding a second all-stakeholders' conference in not less than 20 days and then notifying Parliament within a month. The subsequent referendum is scheduled to be held no less than three months after Parliament approves the draft (ZTV, 5/12, 8pm and The Herald & Daily News, 6/12).

Although all the media reported these new timelines, only The Daily News (6/12), revealed that according to the revised schedule the earliest Zimbabwe could hold its referendum was likely to be June next year - three months after the date suggested by President Mugabe for the holding of presidential and parliamentary elections.

Mugabe has been widely reported telling different gatherings that Copac should complete the constitution-making process early next year to pave the way for national elections to end the "dysfunctional" and "illegal" unity government [The Zimbabwean & SW Radio Africa (5 & 6/9), The Standard (2/10) and New Ziana & The Herald (1 & 2/12)].

For example, he told ZANU PF's National Consultative Assembly last September: "We cannot go beyond March next year. I will definitely announce the date. Once I announce the date, everyone will follow. I have the constitutional right to name an election date with the GPA or no GPA. We cannot continue to have this dillydallying"
(The Herald, New Zimbabwe.com, The Zimbabwean and SW Radio Africa, 3, 5 & 6/9).

Revelations by Copac that there were some outstanding constitutional issues, amounting to 20 percent of matters to be sent for drafting, might also undermine the committee's ability to finish the exercise within its stipulated timeframe (The Herald and Daily News, 6/11). The issues include the dispute over dual citizenship, the death penalty, the Attorney-General's role and systems of governance.

These latest developments in the constitution-making process were contained in 13 of the 33 stories on the administrative aspect of Zimbabwe's elections. Of these, 11 appeared in the official state media, while the remaining 22 featured in the private media.

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