MDC angered by Appointment of ZEC and ZHRC chairpersons

MDC Press Statement on Appointment of ZEC and ZHRC chairpersons
 
The MDC is dismayed, distressed and angered by the twin announcements that Jacob Mudenda and Justice Rita Makarau have been appointed by President Mugabe and Prime Minister Tsvangirai to the positions of Chairpersons of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) and the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) respectively.

Firstly, the announcements made recklessly without due regard to the laws of the country, show an unacceptable cavalier attitude towards legality and outright disrespect of other institutions of government mandated by the Constitution to play a role in such appointments.

The constitution of Zimbabwe requires that the President must consult both the Standing Rules and Orders Committee of Parliament and the Judicial Service Commission before appointing the Chairpersons of the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission ("the Rights Commission") and ZEC. The twin announcements of the purported appointments have been made without due regard to these constitutional dictates and thus rendering the purported appointments illegal.

Furthermore, with regard to the purported appointment of Justice Makarau to be the Acting Chairperson of ZEC until after the elections pending the regularization of her appointment as the substantive Chairperson, neither the constitution nor the Electoral Act make any provision for the appointment of an acting of temporary or interim chairperson by the President and the Prime Minister.

The Electoral Act provides that any vacancy in the membership of the ZEC must be filled by the President in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution which in turn require that a vacancy in the position of Chairperson be filled by the President after consultation with the Judicial Service Commission and the Standing Rules and Orders Committee of Parliament. In short, there is nowhere in the law that provision is made for the appointment of a temporary chair pending the regularisation of a permanent appointment. Thus on this additional basis the purported appointment of Justice Makarau is illegal.

With these two purported appointments ZANU -PF must be laughing all the way to the Bank. That Prime Minister Tsvangirai accepted these appointments is not only incomprehensible but his subsequent public defense of these purported appointments is so irrational in its defiance of logic and common sense that it is difficult, if not altogether impossible to believe that he applied his mind to the implications of the appointments.

Those in his party who worked so tirelessly together with some of us for the creation of the two institutions through the Global Political Agreement and Amendment No. 19 to the Constitution pending the making of a new national constitution must be as distressed as I am by the appointments. The MDC -T members who lost their lives at the hands of ZANU -PF thugs and state agents during the last Presidential election runoff in circumstances in which the then Electoral Commission was responsible for much of the chaos must surely be turning in their graves.

Justice Makarau is no doubt a fine lawyer, but there is no Zimbabwean who does not know her very close links to ZANU -PF before she became a judge and during her previous role with past election bodies in the country. Equally, no Zimbabwean does not know just how high Jacob Mudenda was in the ZANU -PF hierarchy in his past political life. The Rights Commission and ZEC, having regard to their central roles in human rights monitoring and delivering free and fair elections respectively should be chaired by Zimbabwean persons whose impartiality and commitment to democratic ideals is beyond question.

This week will go down as a very sad and distressing week in the history of the struggle for human rights and democracy in Zimbabwe. Prime Minister Tsvangirai must search his conscience very very hard. In one stroke he has taken the democratic struggle to square one. For our part as the MDC we will oppose both appointments whenever they will be presented to the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders. We hope that by then the MDC -T will have regained in moral conscience.