You may remember that I wrote a couple of years ago in this paper to say I was keeping two cigars to share with you when we see some progress towards freedom that we can celebrate together. I still have those cigars, but I am beginning to wonder how long they will keep fresh and whether it is worth waiting much longer in hope. I have no answers yet, but I would like to share some of my questions with you.
The first question is over the Constitution. The way this latest draft was produced and then not allowing us enough time to judge it has destroyed any faith we had that we would get a people’s constitution. Still, in spite of everything, that draft has some good points; it says all civil servants, chiefs, police and army, must be non-partisan. Senior officials now have limited terms of office. All local councillors are elected and the minister cannot fire them. We have gained recognition of our right to protest, the right to liberty and socio-economic rights; it is strong on women’s rights and brings in children’s rights. But can any of this be enforced?
The draft still leaves the President with too much unrestrained power.
While it goes to great lengths to provide for equal representation of men and women, it does it by making the voting system more complex. It loses a lot in transparency, which will greatly reduce the chances that any election will be fair. Your opponents in the next election will be the same as last time: our local experts in exploiting anything that isn’t as clear and transparent as glass, and in creating confusion – but you don’t need me to remind you of that. If they could agree that voting results should be counted and published at polling stations in 2008 and then persecute anyone who did that, how many ways can they exploit a process as obscure and convoluted as this proposes?
When you are dealing with people you know from hard experience to be so untrustworthy, how could you let yourself be persuaded by a few soft words? You have lost more friends, associates and people even closer to you than I have to their machinations over the past dozen years. Yes, I do know how persuasive he can be and how his ingratiating smile can change in a moment to a frown that would freeze Kariba. We all know that now and, as a wise man said, if you let somebody deceive you once you can blame him; if he deceives you twice you can only blame yourself.
Many of us cannot see why you let Zanu (PF) get away with introducing the presidential running mates clause and then changing it because they decided it did not solve one of their current problems. It isn’t your job to solve their problems for them. They wouldn’t do that much for you and they maintain that their business is to oppose you at every turn.
Why not leave them to solve their own problems? Much the same can be said about the presidential succession process. Those cigars won’t be smokeable if we wait 10 years for the temporary clauses to lapse and how do we know that either of us will live that long?
So I don’t know whether I’ll vote in the referendum. Is the draft good enough for me to bother? But the draft isn’t the whole story. Have you any guarantee that they will observe this agreement, after the way they tore up every other agreement that didn’t suit them? Or should we go ahead without any guarantees against a rigged referendum, a rigged election or a refusal to accept the results? Or are there limits, not to their villainy, but to their capacity to carry it out? We all hope you know how high the stakes are and what the risks are. Meanwhile, those cigars wait a little longer.
Post published in: Letters to the Editor