Civic society groups remain skeptical over the government-led constitutional reform exercise, while the national labour and student movements and the outspoken National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) political pressure group have vowed to campaign against the reforms that they say are open to abuse by the country’s three governing parties.
Matinenga told members of the committee, who will later this week fan out across the country soliciting the views and ideas of Zimbabweans that they want included in the proposed new governance charter, that citizens will reject in a planned referendum any draft constitution that does not reflect their wishes.
“(We) can only facilitate the process towards the crafting of the constitution. We cannot dictate," said Matinenga, addressing a training workshop for the constitutional committee members.
"We dare not dictate the outcome. History tells us that any interference with the will of the people is bound to fail. It happened in 2000. We should never, ever tamper with the wishes of the people this time around,” said Matinenga, a senior member of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party.
Zimbabweans 10 years ago rejected a government-backed draft constitution in a referendum, accusing President Robert Mugabe and his then sole ruling ZANU PF party of manipulating constitutional reforms and doctoring the draft in order to entrench their hold on power.
The NCA working with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, the student movement and the opposition MDC party – then a single party led by Tsvangirai – masterminded the campaign for a No-vote against the government-sponsored draft constitution in February 2000.
The fresh attempt to write a new constitution follows formation last February of a coalition government by ZANU PF, MDC-T and the smaller MDC-M party of Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara and is part of requirements of a September 2008 power-sharing deal signed by the three parties.
If approved by Zimbabweans in a referendum the draft constitution will be taken to Parliament for enactment, with the coalition government expected to call fresh elections once a new constitution is in place.
It is however not clear whether the government will call new elections immediately after a new constitution is enacted or whether it will wait until expiry of its legal life span in 2013.
* Zimonline
