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“The idea that the principals should not participate is a stinging vote of no confidence in Tsvangirai. Even the assertions by (Mr Douglas) Mwonzora that this (constitution-making) is a parliamentary process are a spectacular attack on Tsvangirai’s leadership.”
Mr Mwonzora said over the weekend that the constitution-making process was a parliamentary process in his attempts to explain why principals should not be involved while Clerk of Parliament Mr Austin Zvoma rebuffed the assertions.
Mr Zvoma said Copac administration was done outside Parliament while its business did not appear on the House of Assembly Order Paper.
Prof Moyo said the Biti faction had the support of donors in his fight against Mr Tsvangirai.
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“I think that there are now two things that are clear, the first one being that the internal power struggles in the MDC-T which have been going on and playing out in the MDC-T itself are now spilling into national issues which is very dangerous.
“This is being made more apparent by the fact that the donors seem to be stepping aside and appear to agree with Biti that Tsvangirai has lost it and has become pre-occupied with pleasure and personal issues, what you can call a bling-bling leader.
“For a long time there has been a feeling that Tsvangirai has no leadership skills and has no capacity to handle national issues,” Prof Moyo said.
He added that the actions by Mr Biti reinforce widely held beliefs on Mr Tsvangirai’s leadership inadequacies.
“They have always said Tsvangirai is a populist trade union leader and have said he even goes to meetings with pre-written script and that he lacks spontaneous capacity to respond to critical issues.
“Because they have seen the constitution-making process as a way of getting back lost ground they (Biti faction) say was lost by compromises made by Tsvangirai in the GPA negotiations, they have said only Biti can negotiate and that the Copac draft is final.
“It is a pre-determined and well calculated manoeuvre to muzzle Tsvangirai out of the negotiations process,” he said.
Prof Moyo said Mr Biti had managed to rope in other negotiators in the Copac management committee in his power struggles by including the controversial clause on presidential running mates.
“Biti is bitter that Tsvangirai agreed to have only two deputy prime ministers when they had agreed that there should be three DPMs.
“He did not want to be Finance Minister but the third DPM and so he has not forgiven Tsvangirai on that and now that they have agreed with other negotiators on the issue of running mates he is expecting to be the second vice-president,” he said.
He said Biti’s moves through the running mate issue had created friction with his party’s national chairman, Mr Lovemore Moyo and MDC-T vice president and DPM Thokozani Khupe.
Prof Moyo said the launch of the “Yes Vote” campaign was Tsvangirai’s move to counter Mr Biti as he wanted to collapse the whole process.
“The launch was done prematurely and is a deliberate attempt to scuttle Biti, it’s like putting the horse before the cart. Tsvangirai knows it very well that it is nonsensical to start campaigning when the principals have not yet discussed the draft and even before the second all stakeholders’ conference and most importantly before it has been taken to Parliament.
“The premature launch is intended to pre-empt Biti because the premature launch of the “Yes Vote” campaign before the three processes have been done is to kill the whole constitution-making process, you cannot say Yes to a document that doesn’t exist,” Prof Moyo said.
University of Zimbabwe political scientist Dr Charity Manyeruke said the “Yes Vote” launch was premature as the draft was still to be adopted by the parties.
“That was a premature launch because the draft has not been accepted by all parties. As I have said before they have to consider what Zanu-PF is saying because the process is clear that the draft had to be presented to the principals.
“While the other two parties have adopted the draft, Zanu-PF has proposed those amendments so it is imperative that the principals sit down and consider those amendments otherwise the whole process grinds to a halt,” she said.
Dr Manyeruke said the second all stakeholders’ conference would not be successfully convened if Zanu-PF views were not taken on board.
On the alleged importation of MDC-T factional fighting into the constitution making process she said: “It would be unfortunate, because this is an important national issue that is supposed to last for generations to come and is not supposed to address personal issues.”
Midlands State University media specialist Dr Nhamo Mhiripiri said the whole process had been driven by politicians making it necessary for the principals to have their input.
“They should stick to the original methodology. We understand that the final say should lie with the principals so that is what should happen to prevent confusing the whole process.
“From the outset this was a politicians-driven process, although people’s views were also included, so the document should go to the principals.
“What we expect is for them (principals) to meet, whether they will agree or disagree is something else that we will deal with but to say they should not meet is trying to change what was agreed on in the first place,” he said.
Dr Mhiripiri described the MDC-T’s Yes Vote campaign as premature because there are important stages the draft has to go through before adoption.
Online Reporter