Copac to surrender final draft

after updating the Zanu-PF Politburo meeting yesterday on the Constitution-making process that principals gave them up to next week to come up with the final document.
“I updated the Politburo on behalf of Copac on the progress we have made so far. We have now come up with the first draft and we have agreed on it as the select committee and the management committee also adopted it as work in progress. The management committee then instructed that we should go back to our party caucuses to interrogate the draft.
“If the parties fail to agree on the draft it means we have to come up with another draft. We have been directed by the principals that we should give them the final draft before the end of next week.
“If we fail to agree on the outstanding issues we will submit the issues to the principals and I am sure that they will find a common ground,” he said.
Cde Mangwana said Copac was yet to agree on several issues. He said there was no agreement on the first sentence of the draft which is saying “Zimbabwe is a sovereign State.”
Cde Mangwana said the sentence should read: “Zimbabwe is a unitary sovereign State.”
He said Copac was also in disagreement on the number of women parliamentarians.
“As Zanu-PF we are saying there should be 90 seats in Parliament reserved for women while MDC-T is saying there should be 40 seats and MDC is saying women should have 60 seats.
“There is no consensus on the number of senators and as Zanu-PF, we are saying we should have 100 senators, MDC is saying there should be 80 and MDC-T is advocating for 90 senators,” he said.
Cde Mangwana said they were yet to reach an agreement on the number of provinces. He said Zanu-PF was insisting on the current 10 provinces, while the MDC formations were pushing for five provinces.
Cde Mangwana said another disagreement was still on the number of chiefs who should sit in Senate and whether they should have voting powers.
He said they had made some notable progress on the issue of provincial councils.
Cde Mangwana said the provincial councils will implement decisions and policies of the national Government.
He said there should be a link between the provincial government and the national Government.
Zanu-PF spokesperson Cde Rugare Gumbo confirmed that they had received an update on the Constitution -making process.
“There were two issues that were discussed. Firstly, we received an update on the Constitution-making process from Cde Mangwana. He said our team in Copac was reviewing the draft and they have gone through 12 chapters
“They are left with at least six chapters and they will go through them in the next few days,” he said.
Cde Gumbo said President Mugabe insisted that Copac should finalise the outstanding issues before the end of next week.
Cde Gumbo said they also received a report on the ongoing Zanu-PF District Co-ordinating Committee elections.
“A number of challenges were raised in certain areas and the political commissar (Cde Webster Shamu) says he would be going to those areas.”
Cde Gumbo said the party will overcome the challenges it was facing before the general elections set for this year.