The NCA insists the draft constitution is not people driven and as such should be rejected. In 2000, the NCA, other civil society organisations and the then united MDC successfully mobilised Zimbabweans to vote against a proposed new charter drawn up by Constitution Commission led by Godfrey Chidyausiku.
That was after it was felt that President Robert Mugabe had smuggled into the draft clauses that were not part of a popular process.
NCA spokesperson Madock Chivasa is confident that Zimbabweans will heed calls to reject the proposed new charter, despite high expectations among Zimbabwe’s coalition government partners that people will vote for the COPAC draft.
“Political parties are mistaken to think people will vote for the COPAC draft constitution because they think everyone is either MDC or Zanu (PF). If you look at the statistics of the Zimbabwean population, you will find out that there are more people who are not either MDC or Zanu (PF),” said Chivasa.
Chivasa said the majority of Zimbabweans had lost confidence in the GNU hence it was a mistake for the parties to assume their “Yes Vote” campaign would succeed.
“If people try to evaluate the GNU, they will find that it has done nothing and the assumption by the political parties that they are still popular is wrong. The NCA will be telling people that they should reject the draft constitution because it has retained some of the things that were in the old constitution, among them too much presidential power,” he added.
But political analysts are of the view that the NCA is engaging in a wild goose chase by campaigning for the rejection of the draft. Political analyst, Eldred Masunungure is of the view that the NCA’s efforts will be in vain.
“Once you have two major political parties on one side there is absolutely no choice for any other contestants including the NCA. Its decision should be recognised as its democratic right, but we need to note that it has very a minimal impact on the decisions of voters,” he said.
“The voter is either Zanu (PF) or MDC and on this issue, these two parties are together. The referendum is just a formality and one does not need predictive powers to forecast the outcome.”
Another political analyst, Alexander Rusero said the NCA was mistaken in drawing confidence from its previous success of 2000. “During that time the NCA was used as a litmus test on how it was possible for the opposition to venture into elections. Zanu (PF) and the MDC-T have a large number of supporters and come referendum time, we are likely to see the majority prevailing over the minority, the NCA included,” said Rusero.
Political analyst Charity Manyeruke said: “Of course there might be few people who will oppose the draft constitution but that is what democracy is all about. The NCA has got its reasons for voting no but eventually, the constitution will be voted yes.”
Post published in: News