International consultant calls for alignment of laws with new constitution - tinkering with weak constitution will not make it s

AN international elections consultant, Rushdi Nackerdien, yesterday said the holding of free and credible polls in 2018 hinges on government's commitment to realigning electoral laws to the new Constitution and timely provision of adequate resources to the election management body.

"There is a major realignment of legislation to the new Constitution in relation to Zec's work and mandate," Nackerdien said, according to a Newsday report.

"In the last elections budget was released late, but the ideal time of releasing resources according to Sadc (Southern African Development Community) guidelines is six months before election."
Nackerdien made the remarks in Harare yesterday during a stakeholders meeting organised by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) where he presented his research findings titled: Zimbabwe Electoral Commission Identification of Needs Gaps.
The consultancy was funded by the Royal Danish Embassy.

The other issue Nackerdien raised was the age of ZEC officials. The average age of the 102 staff compliment was 54 years raising problems of succession and continuity.

What our so called elections consultant, Rushdi Nackerdien, raised here are side issues that will have little or no effect in ensuring free, fair and credible elections. The old constitution gave the president to power to appoint and dismiss ZEC members, parliament has no powers to even call any of them to account for anything, and making them beholden to the president. The new constitution has not changed this fundamental weakness.
 
In other words even if all the electoral laws were aligned to the word and spirit of the new constitution the nations will still not have a truly politically independent and impartial ZEC; a ZEC that would have insisted on the timeous release of voters roll, demanded a full Police investigation of bussed in voters, etc. 

There are similar weaknesses in the new constitution as regards the Police, Media and other key State Institutions compromising their independence and their ability to carry out their democratic duties in a none-partisan way.

Paul Mangwana the Zanu PF co-chair on the committee tasked to draft Zimbabwe's new constitution boasted that it was Mugabe who dictated the new constitution and, of course, he is right. MDC failed to get even one democratic reform implemented and in their desperate effort to present something to the electorate they agreed to everything Mugabe wanted in the new constitution.

The new constitution failed to deliver free, fair and credible elections last year because it is a weak and feeble constitution and no amount of tinkering with it will ever change that!

What Nackerdien telling us is the same old feeble excuse "No, the new constitution is not perfect but it is better than what we have now. It is work in progress!" We have heard the excuse from incompetent MDC leaders like Tendai Biti and David Coltart ashamed to admit the new constitution was another wasted opportunity to put the nation on a democratic footing.

Zimbabwe needs to implement all the democratic reforms and a new democratic constitution as the prerequisite for free, fair and credible elections; itself a prerequisite good governance and economic recovery.

The issue of individual freedoms and rights and a democratic constitution should have been settled the day Zimbabwe attained its independence in 1980; they were not settled because there was neither the political vision nor the political will on the part of the emerging leadership to deal with these things once and once for all. There are at least ten democratic constitutions that have withstood the test of time, that can be used as the skeleton on which to build Zimbabwe's democratic constitution.

We must not allow yesteryears' leaders who lacked of vision and will to write a democratic constitution be replaced by today's career constitution consultants who love of process will have use tinkering with a weak and feeble constitution for generations and still not get it right. Writing a democratic constitution guaranteed to deliver all the freedoms and rights is an event with a definitive date and time! Zimbabwe has wasted 34 years already with tragic consequences for the nation and people; we should not waste another day or year.

We must work to produce a democratic constitution, if it takes us a year it would be time well spend and not waste time aligning various legal documents with a new constitution we know already to be weak and feeble.