Chinamasa justifies Mugabe fast-tracking changes to electoral laws

JUSTICE and Legal Affairs Minister Patrick Chinamasa yesterday said amending the Electoral Act through Parliament would have created a crisis as time was running out for President Mugabe to comply with the Constitutional Court ruling directing him to proclaim harmonised elections dates by July 31.

Briefing ambassadors accredited to Zimbabwe on the electoral processes, Minister Chinamasa also revealed that an invitation was made to MDC formations last week for them to make proposals for the amendment of laws they claimed were undemocratic, but the parties had not yet responded.

He dismissed calls for security sector reforms, saying these were already provided for in the new Constitution signed into law last month by President Mugabe, but indicated that Zanu-PF was open to dialogue with anyone.

"That Constitution judgment required and ordered the President to call for harmonised elections by July 31," he said. "Since that judgment, which also came as a surprise to me, a decision was taken that we comply.

"It would set a very dangerous precedence if the President was to disobey the order of the Constitutional Court. . . if a court sends you to prison you do not negotiate, but just comply."

Minister Chinamasa said deciding on how to comply with the ruling was a difficult exercise as the period between proclamation of elections date and the nomination process had a minimum 14 days and a maximum of 21 days, while the period from nomination to elections has a minimum of 30 days.

"It became very clear that we were running out of time . . . if we had taken the amendments to Parliament, it would have been another three weeks," Minister Chinamasa said.

He told the diplomats that amendments to the Electoral Act were negotiated by parties in the inclusive Government.

Minister Chinamasa said the life of Parliament would expire on June 29, leaving the Executive without the other arm - the Legislature, leading to a crisis. He said reforms were done after the formation of the inclusive Government as evidenced by amendments to Posa, Aippa and the Broadcasting Services Act.

"We reformed Posa together (with the MDC formations)," he said. "Our current Posa is a plagiarised version of the South African security legislation. We took some aspects from Zambia, but the bulk came from South Africa.

"We do not understand the changing of goal posts (by MDC formations). They continue drumming up calls about reform of Posa. Last week in our meeting with the (Sadc) facilitation team, I invited them to send their proposals to me, but up to now I have not received any.

"With Aippa, it is the same situation. Last week I asked all concerned that let me have your proposals and up to now I have not received any.

"If we come to the so-called security sector reforms, once again those reforms they were talking about were negotiated and are now part of the Constitution."

Minister Chinamasa said while the MDC formations were making a lot of noise around the fulfilment of the Global Political Agreement that gave birth to the inclusive Government, they had not met their part of the bargain.

He said illegal sanctions imposed at the instigation of the formations were still in place, pirate radio stations are intensifying their anti-Zanu-PF broadcasts, while over 3 500 Western funded non-governmental organisations were pushing the regime change agenda on behalf of the MDC formations.

Minister Chinamasa briefed the diplomats on the NGOs' covert operations to frustrate the Constitutional Court ruling, while plotting the downfall Zanu-PF. He served the diplomats with minutes of the NGOs' meetings.

Minister Chinamasa said Zanu-PF was "very much aware that reforms were an ongoing process" and "any society that stops thinking of reforms is dead".

Addressing the same meeting, Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi said elections were supposed to have been held as early as February 2011, but parties in the inclusive Government had differences on the timing of the polls.

He said initially, the MDC formations wanted elections to be held one year after the formation of the inclusive Government, while Zanu-PF wanted them after three years.

Minister Mumbengegwi said the MDC formations still wanted the elections delayed even after the expiry of the tenure of Parliament and despite the Constitutional Court's July 31 deadline.