NCA vows to oppose constitutional reforms

NCA vows to oppose constitutional reforms

CAMPAIGN: Madhuku announced NCA to mobilise for rejection of new constitutional draft

CAMPAIGN: Lovemore Madhuku announced NCA to mobilise for rejection of new constitutional draft

• Zimbabwe announces committee for new constitution

• Jonathan Moyo: While Zanu PF has legitimacy but lacks credibility, NCA lacks both

Posted to the web: 15/04/2009 15:57:00
A LEADING rights group in Zimbabwe vowed Wednesday to campaign against the way a new constitution is being drafted for the southern African country under a recent power-sharing deal.

The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), an umbrella group of rights bodies, churches and other activists, said the new basic law should not be written by parliamentarians but on the basis of public consultations.

Lovemore Madhuku, the group's chairman, said he would lead a campaign against the constitution, which should go to a referendum next year.

"The NCA will campaign for a No vote, because any document that comes from a defective process is defective," Madhuku told a news conference.

"We are going to start a campaign of opposing this process. We will obviously be holding demonstrations," he added.

It emerged that Tsvangirai’s MDC boycotted a meeting called by the NCA to explain its position last week. And Madhuku claimed the Prime Minister had specifically instructed his loyalists not to attend.

“It is a fact that Prime Minister Tsvangirai instructed his MPs to boycott our meeting. We have been boycotting their (MDC-T) meetings, so they want to use the boycott weaponry as well. They chose to make a tit-for-tat decision. What this means is that the struggle continues and it is still on,” he said.

Only four MPs from the MDC led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara attended.

On Sunday, parliamentary speaker Lovemore Moyo announced the creation of a 25-member committee to spearhead the constitutional reforms.

The committee includes parliamentarians from President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party and the new Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) -- longtime rivals who formed a unity government in February.

Under Mugabe and Tsvangirai's power-sharing deal, Zimbabwe must draft a new constitution to be tabled in parliament by February 2010.

In 2000, Zimbabweans rejected a constitution backed by Mugabe after critics including the NCA argued that the charter gave the president too much power. - AFP
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