Speaking at press conference at their offices in Harare on Wednesday the chairperson of the NCA, Professor Lovemore Madhuku said the conduct of the referendum was neither credible nor satisfactory due to the lack of respect for the people.
“We hold that the ‘Yes’ vote is illegitimate. The referendum result is therefore illegitimate and not acceptable to us. This is because, 95% of the ‘Yes’ voters had neither seen nor read the Draft constitution.
“95% of the “Yes” voters knew nothing about the contents of the Draft Constitution and the “Yes” voters, by their own admission, said they were voting ‘Yes’ because they were following orders from political leaders to do so,” Madhuku said.
He added that it was extreme arrogance for the President to admit this fact while casting his vote yet he had deployed all state resources to resist attempts by some citizens to delay the referendum.
Madhuku argued that the ‘Yes’ campaign used hate speech as evidenced by the Prime Minister who described the vote No campaign as being spearheaded by “nhinhi” and those intending to vote “No” as having mamhepo (evil spirits).
The NCA chairperson praised the 179 489 voters who rejected the Draft Constitution as people who knew what they were doing.
“They had all been subjected to a ‘Yes’ campaign but rejected it, many any of them had considered the arguments for the “No” campaign and embraced them,” he said. Madhuku went on to say that the reported 3, 3 million who voted is just 44% of the total registered voters.
“What is the view of 56%? This is clearly voter apathy. In any event, the claim that 3,3 million people voted is a fraud by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), to claim that there was close to a million more voters in the referendum than in the March 2008 harmonized elections is to take the public for fools,” went on Madhuku.
Madhuku further said ZEC was not independent as it failed to play its role of monitoring media coverage which was tilted in favor of the ‘Yes’ campaign.
He also said that the environment was not conducive for the ‘NO’ campaign meetings as police disrupted their campaign meetings to the extent that many voters had no access to their messages.
“The voters had not been afforded an opportunity to hear and/or listen to the points of view of the “No” campaign. The “No” campaign was systematically denied access to the public media while messages of the “Yes” vote were the order of the day.”
The NCA further said that they do not accept that the YES vote means an endorsement by the people of Zimbabwe of a new constitution.
“The draft Constitution is undemocratic and will remain undemocratic and unacceptable when it becomes the constitution of Zimbabwe. An undemocratic constitution does not become democratic merely on account of voters being misled by political leaders into a ritual of just voting yes,” he said.
Zimbabweans overwhelmingly endorsed the draft constitution produced by COPAC. According to ZEC, 3,079, 966 people voted in favor of the draft while 179,489 voted against the draft with 56 629 votes being rejected. The draft constitution will be soon be signed by the President before becoming law.
Post published in: News