Traditional leaders not happy with new constitution
By Tichaona Sibanda
04 February 2013
Traditional leaders want to have an audience with President Robert Mugabe
this week to discuss the contents of the new constitution, as they feel some
of the clauses have made them powerless.
It’s unlikely the chiefs would be able to convince Mugabe to make changes to
the charter, which would need the support of other principals in the GPA to
do so.
The traditional leaders told the state media over the weekend that they had
been excluded from the administration of most land, except communal land, a
move they argued had left them with no powers.
Douglas Mwonzora, the COPAC co-chairman representing the MDC-T, said there
was no chance the draft will be subjected to any changes at all. COPAC will
present the draft to parliament on Tuesday for debate and adoption, possibly
by Thursday.
‘We have taken note of their concerns but unfortunately as responsible
citizens we couldn’t take farming land, commercial farms for that instance
and put them under chiefs. The chiefs want to move away from capitalism to
feudalism and that’s not right at all,’ Mwonzora said.
Our correspondent in Harare, Simon Muchemwa, told us many people are
surprised at the timing of the chiefs’ complaints as they had ample time to
study the contents of the draft, even before it went to the second all
stakeholders conference last year.
Muchemwa said the problem lies with the fact that the chiefs aligned
themselves to ZANU PF, and were told what to say by officials from the
former ruling party.
‘The chiefs and other ordinary members of the party received instructions
from ZANU PF on what to say in the constitution. Most of what they said was
not constitutional and ended up not being included in the new charter,’
Muchemwa said.
‘The chiefs, for reasons known to them, were being told what to say by ZANU
PF. They never bothered to let their personal feelings known and they have
to take the blame for that,’ he added.