ZANU PF to ammend constitution

ZANU-PF 17TH National People's Conference has mandated its Members of Parliament to push for the amendment of the national constitution section 124.

Reding the conference resolutions Advocate Jacob Mudenda said, "The conference has adopted to amend the constitution regarding the clause that speaks about the sixty seats for women members of parliament expiring on 2023 to increase its life spine until a considerable level of empowerment has been reached."

Section 124 (1) b of the constitution says: For the life of the first two Parliaments after the effective date, an additional sixty women members, six from each of the provinces into which Zimbabwe is divided, elected through a system of proportional representation based on the votes cast for candidates representing political parties in a general election for constituency members in the provinces.

Earlier this year outspoken independent MP for Norton Temba Mliswa  urged the government to do away with the women who are elected to Parliament through the Proportional Representation because they are a waste of tax payers' money.

"When they came in, they absolutely had no hair style, they had no make-up, so I am saying the only thing that I have seen changing is their hair styles and make up," he said. "They are now prettier than they came in to Parliament."

Women Coalition of Zimbabwe national director, Sally Ncube said the amendment of the section on proportional representation would be a progressive measure that would need to be supported by regulations to operationalise the quota system.

"The regulations should be developed from a nationwide and multi-stakeholder consultative process to ensure that we learn from the previous performance of the quota and facilitate for a legal framework that provides for mandatory standard selection criteria of candidates that is transparent and inclusive for all political parties," she said.