The issue isn’t that simple. It’s not just about the content of the new draft. It says some good things about how the civil service and the security forces should be non-(party )political, but making this law won’t make that happen. People will still have to fight for this aim, but in theory they will no longer be liable to go to jail for that.
It limits the president’s term of office, but what is there to stop him amending the constitution again on his 99th birthday?
It provides for increased representation for women in parliament; a noble aim, and sure to get the support of the NGO trendies, but those provisions make voting more complex. In our situation that should worry us, because “more complex” means “less transparent”, which means easier to rig. Pardon me ladies if I say that can wait till we get a government we have (freely and fairly) elected.
How many of us have read the full 150-page draft? How many will be able to read it before the referendum? COPAC claim to be distributing only a 46-page summary of the draft; 30,000 copies per province, starting on February 25, less than three weeks before the referendum. I heard a rumour that there are only 70,000 copies of the full draft printed – I wouldn’t trust the version published in The Herald last week. That doesn’t sound like a serious attempt to inform voters.
Then the currently headless Electoral Commission claims to be printing 12 million ballot papers, for about 3 million registered live voters, or a maximum of 5 million if every adult holder of an identity card votes.
“Headless” means there is no chairperson; Joyce Kazembe will therefore not fear anybody might interfere with the way she and her CIO and “ex-military” cohorts run the vote.
OK, extra ballot papers will be needed if we can all vote using our IDs, rather than in the constituency where we are registered, but four papers for every person who voted in 2008 sounds excessive, and I don’t believe Mrs. Kazembe and her cohorts aim to use all that extra paper to roll cigarettes, or for other personal purposes. I smell a very big rat there.
There is a problem. If you vote against this draft, you vote for the previous constitution: Lancaster House, panel-beaten out of all recognition. With that alternative, you may feel that what little we know about the draft we are supposed to be voting on is enough of an improvement to vote “Yes” – in spite of all the chances of rigging and the doubts we all have about whether the provisions of this draft can be enforced. That is your decision; not the best we could hope for, but maybe the least bad and least risky in the circumstances.
But in anything like a working democracy, the best advice would be not to vote if you don’t like either alternative or don’t believe your vote will count for anything. If most of us decided to abstain, and we all keep a sufficient watch on the process to make a reasonable estimate of how many of the roughly three million dead people still on the voters roll vote in the referendum, you might feel that all the money and work spent on the COPAC process was not a total waste. Still, there are formidable risks to this course of action that we cannot calculate, as there are for the alternatives.
It is all very difficult. Should we be trying to guess what the riggers want us to do and do the opposite? That would be another big gamble. Make your own decision, but don’t blame me for the results that follow your choice.
Post published in: Opinions
the problem with MDCs is that they are power hungry everytime they want to rush things at the expense of povo then later regret. Why is that Mr Tsvangirai and his ministers quikly forget and undermine ZANU PF? Will there be any difference like what they did in forming unity gvt of which they do not have a say e.g. police and soldiers continue to harass beat pple for no reason taking their radios but these MDCs very quiet what they want is povo to vote for them into power. but let me say power and leadership comes from GOD. mdc try to work with pple you are repeating the same mistakes that have been objected in the previous years,
The constitution should be done with deligently not to rush it. Let people understand and correct it if it belongs to people, but if it belong to the political parties people should know that any time the constitution will be dumped by any of these parties if it does not favor their party.So people should not be influenced by politicians who are power hungry and are forgeting why they are in unity gvt.
Distinct Types You can change something in your human body part like shape of your nose, cheek bones, form of lips and so forth. with the plastic or beauty surgical procedure. DM Plastic Medical procedures helps you to guiding all the things with regards to each component of the human body you might choose out for plastic medical procedures and search various from your normal look. 1- Blepharoplasty Surgical treatment: To reshape your higher eyelid or lower eyelid by eliminating excessive pores and skin, fat or muscle you can go for Blepharoplasty. Two- Rhinoplasty Surgical procedure: To restructure or reshaping of nose you can choose for Rhinoplasty.
Most techies prefer Mozilla Firefox. As a programmer and web designer, I primarily use Mozilla Firefox when I surf the internet. 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.
The player pool could run in the hundreds of thousands at any given time for popular games. Players are chosen almost always at random. Today there are thousands of Download games on the internet being offered for free play and sometimes for download. These games have become popular as a go-to plan for moments of family bonding and offer an exciting alternative to the traditional role-playing and table games. It is very common to find kids joining their mom to find an answer to a trivial question while playing a game. Car games have also become a tool for child development with thousands of these free games designed to help a child develop certain skills and adhere to specific disciplines.