adminKennedy Mavhumashava Chronicle Reporter
Zanu-PF’s vigilance during the constitution-making exercise ensured that the supreme law retained its integrity and enunciated several pro-people clauses that promote fundamental national values, the party manifesto says. According to the manifesto that was unveiled by President Mugabe in Harare on Friday, the constitution-making process was under pressure from external manipulation but Zanu-PF was on guard to thwart the moves.
“As the only liberation movement in Zimbabwe,” says the party’s five-year plan Zanu-PF ensured that the people were given an opportunity to freely express themselves during the Copac outreach programme on the kind of constitution they want for themselves and posterity and that their views were respected in the drafting of the New Constitution.
“The party was vigilant throughout the constitution-making exercise to guard against treachery and to protect the process from being hijacked by foreign or regime change interests. More importantly, and specifically, Zanu-PF ensured that the New Constitution enshrines provisions that not only guarantee that Zimbabwe will never be a colony again but which also protect the values and dignity of the people against such evils as homosexuality.”
Apart from criminalising homosexuality, other key provisions that Zanu-PF fought to be included in the supreme law include indigenisation, welfare of war veterans and the permanence of the liberation struggle, irreversibility of the land reform programme, gender equality, promotion of health and education and respect for traditional leadership.
Section (3) (1) (i) provides for the “recognition of and respect for the liberation struggle” while Section 90 (1) (b) gives a constitutional obligation on the sitting president to be guided by the legacy of the liberation struggle by making it clear that “the President must recognise and respect the ideals and values of the liberation struggle.”
“Section 23 (1) (a) (b) (c) on the welfare of the veterans of the liberation struggle which stipulates that ‘The State and all institutions and agencies of government at every level must accord due respect, honour and recognition to veterans of the liberation struggle, that is to say (a) those who fought in the war of liberation; (b) those who assisted the fighters in the war of liberation; and (c) those who were imprisoned, detained or restricted for political reasons during the liberation struggle,” the manifesto says.
It adds that Section 23 (2) enjoins the State to take reasonable measures including legislative ones for the welfare and economic empowerment of veterans of the liberation war.
The revolutionary party adds, through its efforts, that veterans of the independence struggle are entitled to social protection through pensions and access to basic health care.
During the four-year Copac constitution-making process, countries such as Britain and the US, tried to influence MDCs and even the drafters of the document to defend or be ambivalent on vices like same-sex relationships while, at the same time, marginalising fundamental national issues like the land reform programme, indigenisation and the liberation struggle.
The constitution also guarantees the irreversibility of the indigenisation of land ownership and non-compensation by locals to white former farmers after the party demanded that be so.
According to the manifesto, Zanu-PF campaigned for the promotion of education for all and guarantees on the right to education. The revolutionary party also takes credit for Sections 80 (1) (2) (3) and Section 124 of the Constitution which seek to promote gender equality and representation of women in parliament.
Homosexuality is banned in terms of Section 78 (3) which reads “Persons of the same sex are prohibited from marrying each other.”
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