Draft constitution suspicious - Prof. Moyo

The leaked draft constitution has exposed Copac drafters as sinister forces behind the constitution-making exercise whose work is suspicious and objectionable, says Zanu PF Politburo member and political analyst, Professor Jonathan Moyo.
 
Professor Moyo was speaking on the ZBC Current Affairs programme, Media Watch.

"The fact that it was leaked is a rather sad comment on this process. Copac's work should be public, accessible to the public, transparent and accountable. That it isn't is most unfortunate," he said.

Professor Moyo said the draft constitution is against the core values and principles upon which the nation of Zimbabwe is founded.

He said, "The fact that we now know the contents of this...whether they call it the first draft or not it's not relevant √ɬ¢√¢‚Äö¬¨" it is quite shocking because it is a scandalous content because you have a first draft which is supposed to be a constitution for Zimbabwe that has turned out to be a draft constitution against Zimbabwe, against Zimbabwe's founding historical, cultural and moral principles... against the legacy of the liberation struggle and more particularly, it is shocking and scandalous because it is targeting a particular individual  - President Robert Mugabe."

He added that the leaked draft has clauses that seek to bar President Mugabe from contesting in elections expected this year, saying it is "seeking to disqualify him from contesting the next elections when in fact he is the First Secretary and President of one of the major parties in the Global Political Agreement."

Professor Moyo lashed out at the drafters and those seemingly behind them for using the constitution-making process to launch a direct attack on the President.

"Not only a direct attack, but also a very stupid attack. It's a political attack and people are free to make. It should not make sense that we should be a country that is governed by people who are 70 years and below. And there is no precedent for a thing like that in the civilised world.

"There are people who are electoral cowards, who have failed to use the electoral process to deal with President Mugabe and they think they can use the constitution-making to do that. They tried it 1999 and 2000; we stopped them in the constitutional commission. We will stop them again and again and again until they stop it."

Zanu PF no longer has confidence in Copac, said the Professor. "We cannot have work in progress containing scandalous provisions. We are very thankful as a country to The Herald for publishing that draft otherwise we would not have known that Copac has such dirty work in progress behind the nation's back.

"That work in progress must have right from the start reflected the views of the people. When Copac uses that argument they assure an outcome against themselves, we lose confidence in them. You cannot have such unacceptable content as work in progress... So this is really an example, this particular clause, of the lack of integrity of this process."