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This follows a meeting of the Politburo on Wednesday that overlapped to yesterday morning as the party extensively dissected and digested the Copac draft.
Emerging from the meeting yesterday party spokesperson, Cde Rugare Gumbo said: “We really had an extensive discussion on the constitution. We have sort of concluded what we needed. We are through it is just a matter of cleaning up.”
However, MDC formations accused Zanu-PF of deviating from agreed positions. The parties argued that Zanu-PF should bring their reservations at the Second All Stakeholders Conference and the referendum — not to the principals. The two formations have already endorsed the draft document in its current form.
Cde Gumbo insisted that Zanu-PF was not taking the constitution-making process “lightly like other political parties”.
He said the party was not happy with some sections of the draft constitution, which they wanted addressed.
“Some of us are not taking this thing lightly. It is important that we scrutinise every aspect and every word.
“We are not against the whole document, there are some good provisions in the document but there are also other areas we felt deviated from what the people said during the outreach.
“Our legal team is now putting our amendments in legal language. We should be able to submit the document to the principals after the Heroes holidays,” Cde Gumbo said.
He said the party looked at every aspect of the draft document from the preamble, founding principles, citizenship and land, among other things.
Cde Gumbo said Zanu-PF observed that Copac had left out issues to do with the role of traditional leaders, youths and women, among other interest groups.
The traditional leaders and youths had earlier on presented their position papers to the Politburo.
Traditional leaders recently condemned the management committee for altering and omitting issues to do with issues they had raised in previous drafts. In a memorandum addressed to the principals, Copac management committee and the select committee, the traditional leaders through President of the Chiefs’ Council, Chief Fortune Charumbira, expressed “deeply felt” reservations in the manner issues relating to them were handled.
Chief Charumbira called on the Copac management committee to revisit some provisions as recommended.
In the youths’ reservations, they are demanding maximum representation in Parliament and wish to have at least 40 seats reserved for them.
However, MDC-T spokesperson and Copac co-chairperson, Mr Douglas Mwonzora, accused Zanu-PF of “using factional politics in dealing with the constitution”.
He said Zanu-PF was deviating from the Global Political Agreement by taking the document to the principals.
Mr Mwonzora alleged that Zanu-PF’s stance on the constitution was premised on factionalism within the party. “Asking Copac or the management commit-tee or the principals to renegotiate is tantamount to asking Copac, management committee or the principals to decide on the factional feud within Zanu-PF,” Mr Mwonzora said.
“We are totally against any further negotiations because it is time-wasting and unproductive. Besides, this document is a product of the outreach and negotiation processes.
“The document must be taken to the Second All Stakeholders Conference where Zanu-PF is included, to interrogate the document. They can also wait for the referendum to air their views.
“Our position as a party is that this is decision time for the people of Zimbabwe to decide and not for one party to make a decision on their behalf.”
Cde Gumbo, however, dismissed Mr Mwonzora’s allegations of factionalism saying it did not exist in Zanu-PF.
“They have a right to express their views but they will see when we come up with a radical position that we are not playing games.
“We are not worried by what they are talking about because we are focused on what we want to achieve. They will see from our position paper that we are serious.
“There is no factionalism they are talking about. We are all in agreement with what we are doing. Everyone participates and there are no contradictions,” Cde Gumbo said.
MDC director for policy and research, Mr Qhubani Moyo, said Zanu-PF had “acceded to everything” in the draft constitution through the party representatives.
“Every paragraph, line, comma and full stop were negotiated and agreed on by the parties and signed by all their negotiators as confirmation that they identify with both the content and process of constitution-making.
“As such, let the document that has been signed be taken to a referendum as it is and the people will decide through a referendum whether they want it or not.
“If Zanu-PF is strongly against the draft as we are hearing now, they have an option of mobilising their supporters to vote ‘NO’ and if their views are truly the views of the majority of Zimbabweans then obviously their day will prevail,” Mr Moyo said.
He claimed that it was unprocedural for Zanu-PF to take the draft constitution to the principals, adding that their role was not spelt out in the GPA.
Yesterday’s meeting of the Politburo was the party’s third in a fortnight.
Zanu-PF has expressed dissatisfaction on why people’s views were not properly captured by Copac in the draft document.
The party has also noted that the Copac draft deviated from what was captured during the outreach programme.
Contested areas include national objectives and foundations, the significance of the liberation struggle, the appointment of provincial governors and the establishment of the constitutional court.
Other areas of dispute include the deployment of the defence forces outside the country and the proposed restructuring of the Attorney General’s Office.
There is contestation over a section dealing with the nomination of presidential candidates and their running mates.
The new constitution making stages are:
l First all-stakeholders’ conference
l Outreach programme
l Data collation
l Drafting process
l Second all-stakeholders’ conference
l Parliament
l Referendum
l Presidential assent if YES vote
Bongani Ndlovu