“Civil society is not going to be crying after the March ballot. Don’t expect the Kenyan situation. The election is going to be stolen. Zanu (PF) is going to rig. The ZEC (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) is not an independent entity.”
Citing the failed mission by South African President Thabo Mbeki last week in which Mugabe rejected opposition calls for a new Constitution before the polls, Madhuku said the MDC was now certain to go into the election under a flawed dispensation.
He said there would have been no need to address the issue of draconian laws such as POSA and AIPPA if all efforts were invested in the creation of a new, democratic constitution.
Madhuku, who is also a law lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe, said the ideal situation would have been to call an All Stakeholders drafting committee, comprising the ruling party, opposition members and civil society groups to consider all the constitutional drafts available, the Mbeki draft Constitution, the Chidyausiku draft and then take them to the public for discussion for six months or so.
The draft that emerges from this process would then be taken to an All Stakeholders Constitutional Conference that should comprise at least 600 people. Madhuku said only then can there be a new people-driven Constitution that can be used to lay the basis for the country’s next elections.
MDC President, Morgan Tsvangirai, last week told a meeting to mark the launch of his party’s website that the MDC wanted the Lancaster House constitution scrapped.
“We maintain that we shall vote in 2008, under a new Constitution and under electoral conditions endorsed by all Zimbabweans,” Tsvangirai said.
Â
Â