Tsvangirai has no constitutional or political power to veto elections

Has Morgan Tsvangirai become as politically irresponsible as he now is in his chaotic womanising for pleasure only with no responsibility or is the embattled Prime Minister now suffering from delusions of grandeur to the point of destructively believing that he can unconstitutionally and thus illegally hold the nation to ransom by blocking the holding of harmonised presidential, parliamentary and local government elections that are set for this year without fail?

On Friday Tsvangirai was widely quoted by some sections of the foreign media, especially in South Africa and Europe, as having "vowed" to "resist" the holding of elections this year as if he has a constitutional or political veto to do that.

Yet there's a simple and powerful home truth about this matter and the sooner everyone understands that truth, the better for everyone and our country's peace and prosperity.

In the first place, Tsvangirai has no constitutional or legal authority or power whatsoever to block anything, let alone to block the holding of elections this year, as Prime Minister of Zimbabwe in terms of Constitutional Amendment Number 19 upon which the interparty Government is based.

In the second place, Tsvangirai has no political authority or power under the GPA to exercise any veto on any political process in the country as the leader of one of the three parties to the GPA whose provisions have no legal force beyond the temporary aspects that are in Constitutional Amendment Number 19, all of which will fall away the minute the interparty Government collapses.

If you are serious minded and if you can read between the lines, the only practical thing which Tsvangirai can mean by vowing to block the holding of elections this year is that he wants to collapse the interparty Government this year because that is the only thing he will achieve politically should he pursue his Friday vow.

And when the interparty Government collapses which as will sure happen this year not least in view of the organic confusion and irretrievable disaster now bedevilling the Copac constitution-making process, all GPA provisions that are in Constitutional Amendment Number 19 will cease to be part of the law and that will expose Tsvangirai's vow to block the holding of elections this year as a blatant lie from someone who appears to suffer from delusions of grandeur.

And yet according to various foreign media sources Tsvangirai did not mind to vacuously claim on Friday that "only after the necessary reforms have been implemented will the President and I agree on the date of elections" and self-importantly, concluded that "I will not agree to the elections without the reforms" as if his agreement will be needed.

While some sections of the foreign media apparently fell for Tsvangirai's delusional claims that said more about his growing streak of irresponsibility than anything else, the local media did not buy the cheap hoax obviously because they know better not only about who Tsvangirai is or has become but also about what he can do and not do in terms of the law.

For example, and this must be a telling reality if not a blow to some doubting cynics out there particularly among Zimbabwe's foreign detractors and their local puppets, not a single newspaper in Zimbabwe led yesterday with Tsvangirai's empty vow that he will block the holding of elections this year. Not even one! Yet Tsvangirai and his clueless handlers and hangers on â€" who were stung by President Mugabe's unequivocal announcement reported by this newspaper last week that elections will be "definitely" held this year â€" had hoped that his inane declaration to block the holding of those elections would be the news of the day and indeed the week if not the year.

It is instructive that while the usual sections of the foreign media that typically peddle lies about Zimbabwe still in pursuit of the ill-fated UK, EU and US agenda for regime change in Zimbabwe led yesterday with self-serving headlines which screamed that "Tsvangirai vows to block Mugabe's 2012 election push", locally yesterday's NewsDay led with "PM scoffs at US$1,5m fraud allegations"; the headline of the Daily News was "Mugabe a pain: PM" and The Chronicle led with "Man in trouble for insulting magistrate" while The Herald's lead story was "Chiefs demand to run mines".

There you have it. There was nothing about Tsvangirai blocking the elections as a headline in any of the local papers yesterday.

While Tsvangirai thought he was announcing his alleged vow to block the holding of elections in 2012, none of the local newspapers published that yesterday, including those which routinely support Tsvangirai in the so-called independent media, took notice of the purported "important" notice.

Instead one of them, NewsDay, concluded that the important message from Tsvangirai's Friday Press conference was the Prime Minister's first public and totally unconvincing comment on the very serious US$1,5 million fraud allegations dogging him, his party's secretary- general Tendai Biti and his nephew Hebson Makuvise, who is also Zimbabwe's ambassador to Germany.

Could Tsvangirai be afraid of elections because of the fraud allegations and other murmurs in the corridors of power about the looting spree that some of his party's leaders in Government are said to have done? Time will tell but there's certainly more than meets the eye at play here and Tsvangirai should not think that Zimbabweans are fools.

Against this backdrop, nobody needs the assistance of a rocket scientist to tell which is more serious and very real between the now well-documented US$1,5 million fraud allegations that Tsvangirai and two of his sidekicks are facing with more and worse in the air versus his baseless vow to block the holding of elections this year.

For the avoidance of doubt, and as already argued, it should be recalled that Constitutional Amendment Number 19 which brought about the interparty Government does indeed contain some temporary provisions drawn from the GPA which include Schedule 8 of the Constitution that came with the said amendment. Among the notable provisions of Constitutional Amendment Number 19 that are temporary and which are in Schedule 8 is that the Prime Minister and Cabinet have some executive powers which they share with the President.  

But, and here is the nub of the matter which Tsvangirai and his cronies along with his political founders and funders have missed at their own peril, the temporary provisions of Constitutional Amendment Number 19 derived from the GPA are legal and binding not only during the life of the interparty Government but also if and only if they do not conflict with or disfigure the permanent pillars of the Constitution.  Something temporary cannot replace something permanent!

Put simply or differently, from a constitutional point of view about which the likes of the MDC-T's Douglas Mwonzora and his drinking buddies know nothing as failed criminal lawyers some of whose clients ended up in the gallows, Tsvangirai's executive powers are temporary and subject to the permanent features of the Constitution and not vice versa. Furthermore, Tsvangirai will not have any executive powers, indeed he will cease to be Prime Minister and his Cabinet ministers and those belonging to the other MDC formation will become instant street dwellers, once the interparty Government comes to an end because they are all children of the GPA who will die with their parent.

The only authority in the interparty Government that was not created by the GPA and which is therefore not a child of the GPA is President Mugabe as Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Defence Forces. The composition of the executive of the interparty Government as set out under Article 20.1.6 of the GPA which was incorporated into Constitutional Amendment Number 19 as part of the temporary provisions of the Constitution will fall away the day the interparty Government comes to an end. Article 20 of the GPA created all the other GPA ministerial offices from that of Prime Minister, the two Deputy Prime Ministers, the ministers and deputy ministers such that the collapse of the GPA will collapse with these offices.

The only office not created by Article 20 of the GPA is that of the President which is acknowledged as having existed prior to the GPA and which shall continue not only during the subsistence of the GPA but also after the GPA's interparty Government ahead of the next harmonised presidential, parliamentary and local government elections until the swearing in of the post-GPA government to be elected at that combined poll.

What this means is that on the one hand and in terms of our Constitution, the office of the Prime Minister that is occupied by Tsvangirai is a temporary GPA creation and will therefore not last beyond the existence of the interparty Government whose end is imminent. On the other hand, the office of the President as Head of State and Government and Commander-in- Chief of the Defence Forces is, as acknowledged by Article 20 of the GPA and affirmed by Constitutional Amendment Number 19, permanent not only in that it precedes the GPA and its interparty Government but also in that it will remain intact, or will succeed the interparty Government upon its assured collapse.

Therefore when and after all has been said and done, President Mugabe will remain in office with all his full constitutional and legal powers once the interparty Government comes to an end for whatever reason as will for sure happen this year without fail. In the same vein, it is obvious that the end of the interparty Government will automatically necessitate the dissolution of Parliament by President Mugabe in terms of the Constitution as it was prior to the enactment of Constitutional Amendment Number 19 whose temporary GPA provisions creating the Prime Minister and all that jazz will go with the end of the interparty Government this year.

Given this unassailable scheme of things in terms of the law, it is very foolish for Tsvangirai to vow that he will block the holding of elections this year simply because he cannot do that as he does not have any constitutional, legal or political authority to do so. A person, such as Tsvangirai, holding a temporary office with temporary powers cannot block anything coming from a permanent source or being done by an authority with permanent powers.

The fact of the matter is that elections will be held this year because the interparty Government has become dysfunctionally intolerable with no common agenda or purpose. In a democracy, when the government of the day fails to perform and when it becomes self-evident to all and sundry that it cannot perform because it has become self-indulgent, then surely elections must be held without any delay.

Ironically, the case that the interparty Government has failed was in fact powerfully made by Tsvangirai himself on Friday at his Press conference whose message was lost to sections of the foreign media controlled by interests that want to see illegal regime change in Zimbabwe.  Describing the hopeless performance of the interparty Government over the last three years, Tsvangirai said: "This Government is a sorry (sic) of frustrations . . . We have failed in many respects as a government mainly because ours is a difficult coalition where there is no shared vision and no shared values."

When a government has no shared vision and no shared values, as the interparty Government has become according to Tsvangirai, then that government has no reason for remaining in office for a minute longer.

But there's something disturbing here and it is that while Tsvangirai is clear that the interparty Government has no shared vision and that it has no shared values with no chance of doing anything with a common purpose; and while he admits that this has been the case for the last three years of GPA government failure, he incredulously vowed at his Press conference on Friday to block any election this year whose purpose would be to get rid of the very same dysfunctional and useless Government he is complaining about and a government which he says has no shared vision and no shared values.

What on earth is going on here? Has Tsvangirai lost his marbles or is it that he has never had any marbles to begin with or what?

Tsvangirai's tired refrain is that there must be reforms before elections and he has vowed to block the elections if there are no reforms.

Putting aside Tsvangirai's now well-known illiteracy and ignorance about what comes first between reforms and elections, it just does not make any sense for somebody like Tsvangirai who is part of a government that he himself says has utterly failed for three years because it does not have a shared vision and shared values to then argue that the same failed government must first come up with "agreed" reforms or that it must "agree" on any reforms before the country can have elections.

That position is utter rubbish unbefitting of a thinking Prime Minister if Tsvangirai is one. A government with no shared vision and no shared values will never ever agree on any reforms anywhere in the world. In fact, such a government mixes like oil and water and cannot agree on anything serious by definition. Reforms of any kind are a product of a shared vision and shared values. Either there's a shared vision and shared values or there's nothing. You cannot force a vision or values upon anyone or anything. The only way you can unlock a situation of a gridlocked government with no shared vision and no shared values is by holding elections to allow for an alternative government. Anything else would be very destabilising and therefore very dangerous for any country in that situation.

Admittedly, there's one reform area which initially appeared to be achievable before the next election and that is the area of constitution-making. There was some guarded optimism around constitution-making under Copac because it was spearheaded not only by the three GPA parties making up the Government but also because the same parties had negotiated, agreed and signed a draft constitution known as the Kariba Draft in January 2008 well before they signed the GPA on September 15, 2008 ahead of the formation of the Interparty Government in February 2009.

But this initially promising reform area is now up in smoke: and remember there's no smoke without fire!

The fire is coming from the fact that whereas the three GPA parties decided to abandon their negotiated Kariba draft constitution in favour of putting in place what they said would be a people-driven constitution-making process as captured in Article VI of the GPA, Tsvangirai's MDC-T has taken advantage of the fact that the Copac process is not being done under any law and is now reneging on the shared interparty understanding that the proposed constitution would be based on the views of the people gathered during the Copac outreach programme.

As a result Copac failed to officially publish the national report of the views of the people prior to the start of the drafting stage on January 3 and gave drafting instructions that represent an interparty consensus in place of reflecting and representing a national consensus beyond the views of the three parties which are in any case already contained in the Kariba draft constitution they signed before Copac commenced.

What has compounded this anomaly is that Copac's drafters have become drifters and they have produced a first draft unofficially published by The Herald on February 10 whose content is said by Cde Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana to have drifted away by some 70 percent from the views of the people as contained in the national report that Copac has refused to publish but which was unofficially published by The Herald last December.  

The 70 percent drifting away by the drafters has rendered the whole Copac exercise so organically flawed as to be beyond any clause-by-clause, sentence-by-sentence or word-by-word correction by anybody without starting afresh altogether.

Tsvangirai's MDC T has responded to the ensuing circus by insisting on an opaque drafting process. Jessie Majome, who has been shamelessly masquerading as a Copac spokesperson when everybody knows that she only and always speaks for the MDC-T and its founders and funders, was quoted by AFP last week hopelessly arguing that Copac does not have a draft constitution "except for the leaks of confidential work-in-progress".

Why does Copac have confidential work-in-progress behind the scenes like a secret society when it should be working openly and transparently in public and for the public?

Frankly, this silly response from Majome is akin to a person caught while committing a murder only to plead that his or her heinous act is work-in-progress which can only be reviewed after the act has been completed. From the standpoint of Zimbabwe's national and security interests, Copac's drafting has become murderous and is therefore no longer an acceptable constitutional reform exercise. Reform and murder are not the same things.  Murdering Zimbabwe cannot be allowed under the guise of work-in-progress. Never, ever!

With a dysfunctional government with no shared vision and no shared values as described by Tsvangirai, it is not surprising at all that the constitution-making process that had started seemingly well with the Kariba Draft is now ending with the attempted murder of our nation in Copac.  By the same token, nobody should be surprised that the only way out of this imbroglio is an election this year without fail. Thankfully, Constitutional Amendment Number 18 provides for free, fair, democratic and peaceful elections.