The
great author and filmmaker, Tsitsi Dangarembga a few weeks before the Zimbabwe harmonized
elections asked this: “What is our collective subconscious in Zimbabwe, one of
strife, trouble, war, violence, lack, disease, coercion, brutality?” What is
our collective subconscious in Zimbabwe? It’s an important question; especially
as the nation of Zimbabwe has just come out of general elections many believe
were ‘rigged’ by ZANU-PF and Robert Mugabe. I
believe the electoral process was manipulated by ZANU-PF, but was the
manipulation enough to account for the more than million votes Morgan
Tsvangirai was trounced by? That’s a debate for another day. The more immediate
question is whether the two thirds ZANU-PF parliamentary majority is an
impediment to democracy or we were screwed either way.
On 22 May 2013, the president of the
republic of Zimbabwe, Robert Gabriel Mugabe signed the very expensive draft
constitution into law. Zimbabwe now officially has a new constitution and a lot
of people were very excited about the whole thing. But I for one refused to
join the farce: I relegated the whole thing to that rubbish pile that I dump
the many hoodwinking efforts by African politicians. ZANU-PF got a two thirds
majority in parliament in the just ended elections and they can throw the new
constitution into the bin. That might be a problem, but not a real one; the
signing of the new constitution was already a farce long before ZANU-PF won a
two thirds parliamentary majority. There are two reasons why I believe the
signing into law of the new constitution was a non-event that was never ever
going to have any meaningful impact on our lives even if Robert Mugabe had lost
the elections:
The first reason is that more than
fifty million dollars was wasted on an ‘outreach’ program that was meant to
gather people’s views towards the new constitution. After the obviously
self-enriching process by our politicians, the views of the people were thrown
into the dustbin and what was eventually drafted was what they called a ‘negotiated’
documented. We did not protest much because we were now tired of the back and
forth and we wanted the charade to come to an end. We were then given three
weeks to go through the draft constitution and decide on whether we wanted it
or not. Copies of the draft constitution were not provided. I did not vote in
the ‘referendum’ that was held on the 16th of March 2013 because I
obviously did not know the contents of the draft constitution as I could not decipher
the contents of a legal document in one week – I received a soft copy from a
friend one week before the referendum. And besides, all the major political
parties were campaigning for a ‘YES’ vote, so the result was more or less
predetermined: The constitution obviously belongs to the elite grouping of
politicians who seem to be in cahoots to
loot state resources.
The other reason why I don’t believe the
new constitution is worth talking about is that African politics is not
determined by constitutions but whoever is in power. Noel Kututwa, Amnesty
International's Africa deputy director was quoted by The Zimbabwean Newspaper
the day the draft constitution was signed into law:
“The new constitution is a positive
development with the potential to increase ordinary people’s enjoyment of their
basic rights,”
“Not only is the world watching whether
the country has truly turned the corner on this historic day, but millions of
people in Zimbabwe hope that this new constitution will usher in a new
political order where human rights are respected and protected.” Did he really
believe the new constitution would somehow miraculously make our politicians
become caring about the good of Zimbabwe?
The 1979 Lancaster House constitution which
was replaced by the new constitution has a decent bill of rights, but that
didn’t stop the current government from grossly abusing the rights of its
citizens. As long as voting in Africa generally and Zimbabwe more specifically
is not about who is sufficiently qualified to lead the country and about voting
for our ‘heroes’ we might as well work without a constitution as Robert Mugabe
or Morgan Tsvangirai (if he had won) will not hesitate to amend sections of the
constitution that do not help them fulfill their self-interested agendas.
A few days before Robert Mugabe
signed the new constitution into law, Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of MDC-T
threatened to shut down newspapers that write negatively about him. Officially
launching his party’s national policy conference in Harare on Friday the 17th
of May 2013, Morgan Tsvangirai said he was tired of receiving negative coverage
from the public media. “You cannot have a newspaper with six articles saying
Tsvangirai this and Tsvangirai that; everyday! Regai vakadaro. But musi
umwe gava richadambura musungo (Let them be. But one day, things will go bad for
them). That kind of a media has no future in a democratic
Zimbabwe. I want to tell you this. Muchadya izvozvo. (You will be victims of your doings)” He
said.
He makes it clear that he does not
respect a right as basic as freedom of expression. A constitution, no matter
how brilliant in the hands of either Robert Mugabe or Morgan Tsvangirai is not
of much use. That’s why I did not get excited about the new constitution. As
long as us, as Zimbabweans don’t seriously rethink how we vote our leaders into
power, we can forget about the effectiveness of a good constitution.
In conclusion, I will borrow again
from the words of Tsitsi Dangarmbga: “We have to sew love, harmony, respect,
collaboration, trust, honesty, diligence, fairness and prosperity for all in
our nation. We have to vote into power women and men of the spirit who can sow
these things in our country. Then we shall see the Zimbabwe we want”.
Twitter: @MgciniNyoni - Email: mgcininyoni@gmail.com
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