Mwonzora told The Zimbabwean that his party feared a recurrence of the violence that led to the disruption of the first stakeholders’ conference in July 2009 after a group of rowdy Zanu (PF) youths ran amok.Zanu (PF) youths have threatened to disrupt the conference and declare a stalemate in the event of a rejection of Zanu(PF) amendments to the COPAC draft constitution.
“We are putting measures in place for the containment of violence and we have also engaged the ZRP but whether they will be effective enough remains to be seen,” said Mwonzora.In light of threats of violence COPAC has engaged the principals in the inclusive government to urge their supporters to desist from hooliganism. Zanu (PF) secretary for Indigenisation, Innocent Hamandishe, told The Zimbabwean: “We expect that the Second All Stakeholders conference should adopt our position. We will stand by our position and in the event that other parties refuse to adopt our position, then it’s a stalemate and we will go for elections under the old constitution,” said
Hamandishe. Zanu(PF) COPAC co-chairperson Paul Mangwana said his party was entitled to present its position or amendments at the conference. However, Mwonzora said that no external document besides the COPAC draft would be entertained at the conference.“There is going to be one draft and that is the draft by COPAC. We will be using all the documents that were used in the preparation of the draft, including the full national statistical report,” he said.The conference is set to gobble $1,2 million, most of it on accommodation for the 1,100 expected delegates.