An incompetent lot

After spending so much time and so many millions of donors’ and taxpayers’ money on the outreach exercise, the government now tells us that they have bungled the whole thing, while suggesting that the new constitution may have to be a negotiated settlement.

Of course, by negotiations they mean another round of endless talks on the new constitution led by the same politicians who since 2008 have been able to agree on nothing else except Constitution of Zimbabwe Amendment Act No.19 – that allowed them to form the coalition government, thus giving them access to power and the benefits that come with it.

“If one looks at the things that were asked during the outreach programme, only a fifth of the things that are supposed to be in the constitution were asked. We will negotiate because the data is inadequate,” Ncube said. He wasn’t saying anything new. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has said as much before.

And the two questions that this government urgently needs to answer are: how and why did they decide to ask questions that would cover only a fifth of what is required in a constitution? If it was the Constitutional Parliamentary Select Committee’s fault, then why is it still on the job?

Elsewhere, after this kind of messing up, governments do not wait for elections to hear the people’s verdict. They simply resign and let others with more capable hands takeover. But, of course, not with this lot we call the government of national unity.

And surely Chief Justice Godfrey Chidyausiku deserves a laugh. At least his commission consulted the public on all the relevant constitutional issues. The reason his draft was rejected in 2000 was not because he had not consulted Zimbabweans. It was because President Robert Mugabe and Zanu (PF) sought to manipulate the views of the people.

Not what we are getting from this incompetent bunch. We expected a lot better – particularly from Messrs Tsvangirai and Ncube.

But they seem determined to let us down on the one most critical task we have entrusted them with: the drafting of truly democratic constitution, acceptable to all Zimbabweans, that would ensure free and fair elections. What a betrayal!