Maduku Calls For Elections Before Referendum - Offering Mugabe GPA Bolt-hole!

The leader of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), Professor Lovemore Maduku calls for fresh elections to be held and not bother holding the referendum on the proposed Copac draft constitution as proposed in the GPA.

 “There is no need for the NCA to keep on talking of Vote NO for the referendum because there is no referendum to talk about,” Maduku said “As NCA we are now saying that elections must be held without the constitution and deal with the issue later, whoever wins the elections.”

Drafting the new constitution was supposed to take 18 months but has taken four years instead. And the Copac draft is so feeble and weak it is not the democratic constitution the nation was expecting. In the planed referendum on the Copac draft the people will have their chance to express their opinion on the draft, the failure to implement the reforms and ultimately on whether they will accept another electoral process marred by violence and bloodshed and whose result will not be a true reflection of their democratic will.

The NCA had said it was going to campaign for a NO vote to the Copac draft because the later draft is not a true reflection of the democratic wishes of the people. Admittedly the NO vote camp has an uphill fight on their hands given that all the major political parties has endorse the Copac draft.

The YES camp has the public media on its side whilst the private media still remains muzzled by POSA and AIPPA. This is why media reforms should have been implemented within months of signing the GPA. Still the NO camp must not give up, there is simply too much at stake to throw in the towel so readily.

To even suggest that we can have fresh elections without implementing the reforms and with no new constitution shows Maduku never appreciate why these were proposed in the first place. The reforms and new constitution were proposed to ensure the next elections were free and fair elections. The people of Zimbabwe did not want the orgy of violence of 2008 repeated back then and they still hold that view today.

MDC is telling the nation to accept the Copac draft on the understanding the reforms necessary to ensure the elections are free and fair will follow. Mugabe is saying there will be no more reforms and we all know it is his position that matters. It is the NO vote camp’s responsibility to ensure the people know a YES vote means accepting holding fresh elections in which the orgy of violence of 2008 is not a possibility but a certainty. There is all the evidence of another bloody election for the people to see for themselves, without anyone else having to point these out.

The referendum on Copac draft constitution will be the most important test yet on the Zimbabwe electorate whether or not they are capable of thinking for themselves and not just sheepishly follow the leaders.

Of course Mugabe has every reason to fear the people rejecting the Copac rubbish because that will mean revisiting all the reforms and rewriting the constitution with the added provision that he will not have the same dictatorial sway over the process he has enjoyed these last four years.

To agree that there can be fresh elections knowing they will not be free and fair because none of the agreed reforms were implemented and to agree to deny the people their only chance to reject the whole fraudulent process is defies logic and common sense! It will be betraying the common people because they gain nothing from the cancelation of the referendum but lose everything. The only person to gain from this would be Mugabe for who the arrangement will provide a bolt-hole to escape implementing the only outstanding undertaking in the GPA when he has cunningly avoided implementing all the others!

“There is no referendum to talk about because of what is happening. What we are likely to see is a mock referendum after parties have done the usual negotiations,” was Doctor Maduku’s explanation why holding the referendum should be abandoned. What feeble explanation!

Each time a Zimbabwean whom everyone had thought was on one side of the political divide made a totally irrational decision which will only benefit the other side rumours of the person being a double agent have always followed. It is tempting to dismiss such talk as paranoia. Still, the jury is out on this one; there is simply no rational reason Doctor Maduku would want Mugabe to get away with not having to implement not even one single thing; particularly given that this one – the referendum – would unravel all the tyrant’s dodge schemes Tsvangirai has allowed him to get away with these last four years!

Mugabe and Maduku’s scheme to deny the people a say on what this GNU has done to ensure the next elections are free and fair by cancelling the referendum on the Copac draft must not be permitted. It is infinitely better to just cancel the planned referendum and elections because we already know the Copac draft is rubbish and the whole electoral process is already compromised and therefore will not be free and fair; and thus start the whole process. For the GNU to abandon the referendum because they failed to prepare for free election and go ahead and hold elections that are not free is cynical and contemptuous of the people.

There must be a referendum before there can be an fresh elections in Zimbabwe! The people must have their say on whether or not they are happy there elections will be free and fair!