I have no regrets over draft Constitution: Mangwana

Constitution.
He admitted on Wednesday during a public debate forum organised by Crisis Coalition that they had in certain instances deviated from what the people had said.
In an interview yesterday, Cde Mangwana said it was critical for people to realise that the decision to compromise and negotiate the draft constitution was done in the context where there was pressure from stakeholders to expeditiously conclude the process.
“I have no regrets at all about anything because I did it in good faith. I represented my party well and did the best of what I could for my party and my country,” said Cde Mangwana.
He said it was important for people to remember that during the constitution -making process there were a number of issues that had been “parked” for a long time owing to failure to reach a consensus.
Some of them are dual citizenship, devolution, executive powers, and the Attorney-General’s powers and mandate.
These, said Cde Mangwana, were issues Zanu-PF directed that Copac should not have negotiated when people’s views were clear on what they wanted.
“But we were told to speed up the process whichever way. We thought we would compromise to move forward because negotiations are a give and take process,” he said.
Asked if his admission that he deviated from the people’s views did not give credence to some people, who accuse him of “selling out,” Cde Mangwana did not agree.
“That is nonsense to say we sold out. We sold out to who?” he asked.
Asked what was the way forward considering that the MDC formations had declared a deadlock, Cde Mangwana said the next course of action rested with the principals.
In his address at the public debate, Cde Mangwana said the MDC-T had argued during the deliberations that there was a need to anchor the constitution using international best practices.
MDC-T Copac chairperson Mr Douglas Mwonzora defended the deviation during the public debate.
He argued that there were some inadequacies that could only be dealt with through negotiations.
“Negotiations were unavoidable. We had to negotiate for a number of reasons, for example, negotiations were as a result of the inconclusiveness of the data, the information contained gaps, there was also the need to benchmark the Constitution to suit the world-class constitutions and the contradictory data collected, to mention but a few,” said Mr Mwonzora.
He said it was surprising that Zanu-PF sought to discredit the Copac draft when it had representantives who had appended their signature to it adding that “it was Zanu-PF which was the first to sign while I was the last to sign”.