So the results of Zimbabwe’s referendum on the Copac constitution
are out:
3 079 966 or nearly 95% voted YES
179 489 voted NO
56627 spoilt ballots
The yes-vote has won the day and these are the consequences
that will follow:
a)
There will be no reforms implemented before the
elections or after the elections; we have forfeited our chance to have reforms
implemented.
b)
The weak and feeble Copac constitution becomes
the supreme law in the law and it will not deliver any rights of freedoms, it
merely lists them.
c)
The nation will now move into fresh elections and
since nothing has been done to dismantle the dictatorship behind the wanton
violence of 2008 the same violence will be repeated this year.
Whether the voters knew and understood these
basic realities or not is now academic; it is assumed that they did! We voted
in a hurry and now we can all start regretting at leisure!
5 comments:
“ALMOST 95 percent of Zimbabweans voted in favour of a new constitution that paves the way for new elections, and cuts short Robert Mugabe’s perpetuated rule, results showed Tuesday.” Well this is someone who failed to see any good in this Copac rubbish clutching at straws!
The Copac constitution will limit the maximum terms a president can serve to ten years. Mugabe is 89 and is sickly; do you really think he lost sleep over being told he could serve until he is 99 years old!
When the constitution proposed limiting the age of the president to no older than 70 years, he had that taken out. When the constitution tried the maximum term applied retrogressively, he too had that struck out.
The boldest thing Mugabe got into the Copac constitution was his refusal to have the democratic reforms implemented and thus he is free to use all manner of dirty tricks including violence to “win” elections. In other words, Mugabe is free to impose himself on the nation and he will! He has remained in office all these last 33 years because he was able to deny Zimbabweans their basic right to free and fair elections and imposed himself. He is going to do just that again – deny us our basic right to free and fair elections - and we are to find comfort in the knowledge he will rule for a maximum of ten years! How pathetic is that!?
@ Maqethukisa
Tsvangirai and his MDC friends knew and undertood that this Copac rubbish was not going to change anything on the ground, they violence, etc. will continue. Still they decided they would go on endorse the Copac constitution and move on into fresh elections regardless.
On the 31 January 2013 following a MDC-T leaders' retreat and strategic planning the party's National Organising Secretary, Nelson Chamisa said "The people of Zimbabwe have embraced the MDC and have placed their hope in the party; hence, whatever the magnitude of the persecution from which ever quarter, the people will vote in their numbers for a new beginning and real transformation which will be brought about by the MDC government."
That is a party that knew they had not implemented the reforms necessary to stop the violence but still they wanted the elections to go ahead regardless "the magnitude of persecution from which ever quarter"! All they want is to be elected back into power, they do not care what the price the nation pays for it!
@ Kwv
The original Lancaster House Constitution (LHC) was better than this Copac rubbish is that power was not concentrated in one man because we had PM and President then and, more significantly, none of the democratic institution had been corrupted and compromised with political appointments.
It is a common mistake to compare this Copac rubbish to the amended LHC; we set out to write "a democratic constitution" and not to write something better than the LHC. This mistake is easy to make if one believes that a no vote to the Copac constitution meant going back to the LHC and holding election; that is a lie.
Amendment 19 in the LHC brought in the GPA and it called for specific tasks to the carried out before fresh elections are held which include implementing reforms and writing a democratic constitutions. A no vote in the referendum would have meant going back to these set tasks and another referendum and then election after the revised constitution is approved.
@ Inguana
Implement the democratic reforms were key to all this because they would have dismantled the dictatorship brick by brick. The Copac constitution was crafted to retain the dictatorship and that is why it is a dictator's creed richly painted in the coluors of democracy. Nothing more!
If you think you can have free and fair elections and still have the dictatorship in place; now that is indeed the myth!
@ Somerset
The real battle here is the battle of the minds and there can be no better battle field than here. The 3 million who voted yes for this Copac rubbish did so without even reading it; they just took Tsvangirai's word that it will deliver free and fair elections - free of violence.
When the nation is swept by wave upon wave of mindless violence then the people will see for themselves who was lying to them. The violence will open their eyes and earns, they will prepared to see and hear reason. The battle of the mind will then start in earnest!
This referendum was but a skirmish, mavambwa. The real war is yet to be fought and it will be won by men and women of ideas! It is always so and it will be so here too!
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