Polad members feels cheated by Mnangagwa




Professor Lovemore Madhuku
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NATIONAL Constitutional Assembly (NCA) president Lovemore Madhuku has accused President Emmerson Mnangagwa of going being his POLAD colleagues’ back to pass into law, the much-condemned Constitutional Amendment Bill (Number 2).

The law, among other things, removes the obligation on future presidential election candidates to select running mates.

It also grants the President the prerogative to handpick judges to the country’s bench while also extending the tenure of judges beyond their 70-year retirement limit.

At a media conference he convened Wednesday to give his party’s position on the new law, Madhuku said condemned both the law and the manner in which the incumbent railroaded everyone to pass the law.

“The reason we are condemning that amendment is very clear…we have two grounds that are very solid. The first one is that the amendment is not a people driven process.

“It is contrary to what a constitution must do,” said the opposition leader.

“The making of a constitution must be by the people, its amendments must be by the people.

“So, both the process of making the constitution and amending it must be people driven and this did not happen.”

Madhuku, a seasoned campaigner for a new people driven constitution during late former President Robert Mugabe’s time, said the amendment process was “purely and exclusively driven by Zanu PF as a ruling elite, by Zanu PF as a political party and by Zanu PF politicians”.

“The second ground why we are condemning this is, it was done contrary to very solid and overwhelming public opinion against it and as NCA, we have evidence of that public opinion against it.”

The constitutional law professor, whose party is a member of President Mnangagwa’s Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD), a grouping of parties whose leaders contested Mnangagwa in the 2018 elections, accused the Zimbabwean leader of selling his colleagues a dummy when the matter was being discussed during the elite forum.

“We are members of the Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD) and within that dialogue, there was a lot of discussion around Constitution of Zimbabwe (Number 2 Bill) and the position that was adopted in POLAD was that this Bill must be withdrawn and there must be further consultations to ensure that it must be amended to accommodate other concerns that will address electoral reforms ahead of 2023,” he said.

Madhuku urged continued citizen resistance against the controversial law.

He however said his party will not leave POLAD after losing out on the Amendment Act hoping to use the platform to pursue electoral reforms ahead of the 2023 elections.