The process of gathering their views met with challenges. Some political parties sought to whip their supporters to give partisan views regarding the contents of the much-awaited charter. To some extent, many who attended the outreach meetings simply parroted the views of their political masters.
However, by and large, the outreach phase reflected the expectations and interests of the majority of Zimbabweans, among them special interest groups such as the disabled, women and children.
It is unfortunate that after their views were gathered, they were subjected to political manipulation through protracted negotiations between MDC-T, MDC-N and Zanu (PF).
In spite of all the adulteration of the people’s views during those negotiations, we have to move on. Now that the draft is out, people should once again come back to the fore.
Hopefully, there will be the Second All-Stakeholders Conference to deliberate on the draft. We expect the people to speak. They should be given the chance to say whether or not the views they gave in the first place have made it into the draft. If not, refinements will need to be made.
That rules out political parties making further attempts to doctor the document under the guise of speaking on behalf of the people. This effectively means that Zanu (PF) should forget about seeking re-negotiation of the draft, and the other two parties should forget about agreeing to that demand.
The most important stage is the referendum, where the people will, once again, have to speak through their vote. But in order to do so meaningfully, they need to know the contents of the draft, chapter by chapter, section by section.
Copac agents and other non-partisan stakeholders need to move around the country communicating this to every community.
As we write, MDC-T is set to go on the campaign trail to encourage people to vote “Yes” to the draft. But this will not achieve anything if people do not fully understand the contents and the implications thereof.
Post published in: Editor: Wilf Mbanga
Tsvangirai was telling Violet of VOA that MDC has force through media reforms, amongst others, in one sentence and in the next he admitted that in all the three and half years as PM he is yet to appear on ZBC TV. Is that really the free media we want?
The new constitution is offering is 3%, at best, incremental changes on the current Lancaster House constitution. Not enough to guarantee a free media, end the scourge of political violence, etc.; in short, not enough to deliver the environment for free and fair without which this nation will not achieve the regime change we are all dying for!
Zimbabweans elected Mugabe and Zanu PF in 1980 believing the country was destined for a great future. Even in the face of growing evidence of Mugabe’s satanic tendencies still the people considered Mugabe their man.
There is overwhelming evidence already that Tsvangirai is a “flawed and indecisive character†as USA Ambassador to Zimbabwe, Chris Dell, said back in 2002. And this new constitution he is selling to the nation is flawed. Did we not learn the lesson of the dangers of blindly following Mugabe and thus are now smart enough not to do the same with Tsvangirai? It is folly to vote YES to a constitution we know offers nothing and have to suffer the consequences of that decision for another generation!
If Zimbabweans voted NO; what then? Well, first one has to understand and accept that the new constitution was not going to bring free and fair elections. (Tsvangirai and his MDC friends have pointed refused to say “Yes the new constitution will guarantee free and fair elections.†Because they know Zanu PF took out all the clauses seeking meaningful democratic reforms.) So a YES or a NO vote is not going to make any difference; the next elections are NOT going to be free and fair!
By voting NO to the new constitution the Zimbabwean people would show they have the courage and resolve to reject something they KNOW is rubbish and they refuse to be treated like sheep. Having, for once, demonstrated their independence and flexed their intellectual muscle; even a ruthless tyrant like Mugabe’s will be worried about what they will do next especially if the next elections are not free and fair!
The nation’s climb out of the hell-hole Mugabe landed us is not going to be a hard slog and the first step in that journey is that we, as a people, pay more attention to reason and not to rhetoric!
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Then I design and build websites, I test them in both browsers. I have come across some websites that work only in Internet Explorer. That basically means you will only sell to people who browse to your site using Internet Explorer. So maybe you do not want the business of those who surf in Mozilla Firefox. I doubt it. If you are in business, you want to make sales, period. Not just to one crowd of browser users. I’ve come across websites that could be viewed in Mozilla Firefox, but you could not place an item in the shopping cart and purchase it.