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Referendum the only elixir to a new constitution
Aribino Nicholas
September 13, 2012

The debate on a new constitution has, among other things, generated more heat than light in Zimbabwe. This heat seems to be a result of ideological positions that different political parties are identifying with. The political parties want their voices to be heard in the new constitution at the cost of what people have said. People expressed their viewpoints about what the new constitution should embrace during an opinion shopping exercise on the new constitution that was managed by COPAC. It is disturbing to note that the issue of a new constitution has dragged on for some time now without any meaningful conclusion to it; rather it has only managed to benefit a handful of people in terms of allowances. For example, recently it was recommended that MPs that had used their vehicles during the constitution making process should be given $10.000 each to make up for the damage of their vehicles. One is forgiven for thinking that the constitution making process has become a cash cow for a chosen few. If the constitution process bleeds money like this then some people, the chosen few, of course, would want the whole process to go ad infinitum.

A constitution should be pregnant enough to reflect various shades of opinion of people living in a multicultural society. In a multicultural society people should respect one another's perceptions about reality. Reality is influenced by cultural backgrounds, time, space and geography. Differences between and among people indicate a healthy society. After all, the only thing that is normal under the sun is difference. Even if you were to look around you, you would see people who are different in terms of taste, height, weight, complexion and ethnic origin, among other things. Essentially, a constitution should reflect the face of a multicultural society.

To me, the constitution making process should resemble a qualitative research. A qualitative research is narrative (descriptive). Before a researcher publishes his or her findings, he or she goes back to the research participants to seek confirmation or disconfirmation of the data gathered. This is done against the epistemological assumption that reality is just as multifaceted as the people who experience it (Schwandt, 1998). The researcher therefore, has to focus on the "world as it is lived, felt, undergone by the actors" (Schwandt, 1998). Constructivists argue that knowledge and truth are a result of perspectives and meanings people place on social events and according to Hammersley and Atkinson (1995) the people-s perspectives are not static but are constructed and reconstructed on the basis of the interpretations of the situations that they find themselves. Given this analogy, it is only judicious that the political parties in Zimbabwe should stop haggling over what people said should be contained in the new constitution; instead the draft constitution should be taken back to the people for confirmation or disconfirmation of its contents. People-s viewpoints should never be adulterated, polluted or corrupted by politicians. Why should politicians negotiate people-s perceptions of a new constitution that they would want? People have spoken and let them through a referendum tell us if what they said is what is contained in the draft constitution.

COPAC should be like a midwife. A midwife facilitates the birth of a baby. The sex of the baby is not in anyway his or her cup of coffee. COPAC did what it did and should now revisit the same people from which it garnered views about the new constitution for their take on the contents of the new constitution. Ideological positions within members of COPAC and members of their political parties are occluding progress. Had a civic group run the constitution making process, there could have been finality to whole exercise.

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