Date for referendum on constitution set for June 30
By Lance Guma
11 October 2010
The Constitutional Parliamentary Committee (COPAC) has said a referendum on
a new draft constitution is likely to be held next year on the 30th June.
Speaking to SW Radio Africa COPAC co-chair Douglas Mwonzora said they had
completed the outreach exercise, except for Harare, where violence disrupted
several meetings.
‘Everything remaining constant we must begin uploading the data that was
gathered from the outreach programme and finish that process on the 30th
October. We are expecting in that period that on the 25th October we will
have received contributions from people in the Diaspora.’
Mwonzora said from the 1st November to the 31st December the thematic sub
committees will be sitting, to debate the content of the constitution as
reflected by the views from the people. They expect to start work on the
draft from the 1st to the 31st of January next year. This will be followed
by a second all-stakeholders conference by March 31st and then a referendum
3 months later, at the end of June.
Asked what will happen to meetings abandoned due to ZANU PF sponsored
violence Mwonzora said; ‘We have said those meetings which were not
conducted to our satisfaction in 43 wards in Harare are supposed to be
redone. We have identified 68 centres where these meetings are supposed to
be redone.’
Mwonzora said they had already set the 16th and 17th October to redo
abandoned meetings in Harare. The ‘political parties liaison committee’ was
meeting on Tuesday to agree on the venues he said. He also said they will
identify meetings that were affected by violence countrywide and either redo
them, or have the views expressed under duress struck down from
consideration.
Last week Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai invited SADC ‘to deploy observers
before the constitutional referendum to help protect the rights of
Zimbabweans to express their views freely and without violence or
intimidation.’
An MDC activist Chrispen Mandizvidza was killed by ZANU PF thugs shortly
after a constitutional outreach meeting in Mbare. Several other meetings
countrywide have been marred by violence, intimidation and the busing in of
ZANU PF thugs to try and influence contributions at different venues.
Meanwhile Mwonzora told us all the recorded audio and visual material from
the outreach exercise will be stored at two commercial banks for
safe-keeping, to avoid a situation where data is tampered with.