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The Eighth Parliament is promising to have the most vibrant and serious sessions compared to the last two that saw the House being invaded by some MDC formation greenhorns whose approach to national issues was myopic.
The House is slowly reverting to the pre-MDC formations era where Zanu-PF legislators discussed serious national matters as they dominated the house.
What is more intriguing is that this will not be the first time President Mugabe will be answering some questions from legislators because he did it shortly after independence when he was the Prime Minister of the Republic of Zimbabwe.
The Prime Minister’s Question Time, however, ended with the abolition of the office and introduction of Executive Presidency in 1988.
The inclusive Government saw a reintroduction of the PM’s Question Time but it never really made the desired impact because the then premier, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai, was not the brightest spark in the House with the dysfunctionality of the tripartite coalition government also compounding matters.
Section 140 (3) of the new Constitution that deals with Presidential Addresses and Messages to Parliament, however, provides for the President’s Question Time where it says; “The President Might Attend Parliament to answer any issue as might be provided in the Standing Orders.”
Fascinating as it is, we expect our legislators to be mature enough and raise critical national issues that help their constituencies and the people of Zimbabwe in general whenever the President avails himself in Parliament.
The Constitution has made the President available when the need arises and accessible to the legislators to engage him constructively and we expect they are not going to blow up this invaluable opportunity by raising insignificant matters as demonstrated by the MDC formations before.
It will also be interesting to see if the blunder-prone MDC-T legislators, who boycotted President Mugabe’s official opening of the First Session of the Eighth Parliament claiming that they do not acknowledge his legitimacy, will attend the proposed question and answer sessions.
What the people in their constituencies also want to know is were the legislators aware that the Constitution provides for the President’s Question Time, and weather their concerns will never be put to the highest office in the land due to MDC-T’s retrogressive boycott culture.
We wonder what the MDC-T legislators will be doing in the House since the legislative agenda was set by the same man they claim they do not recognise.
We hope legislators will not waste the opportunity they have been given by the Constitution.
The question and answer sessions of the 80s are a worthy reference point.
Online Reporter