The Speaker of the National Assembly said it is unfortunate
that the opposition political parties were sleeping in Parliament and enjoying
their privileges only to start raising electoral reforms issues just before the
elections.
He said as the speaker responsible for receiving motions he
has always been ready to get any proposal on electoral reforms but the only
attempt that was ever made towards electoral reforms came from the Zimbabwe
Elections Support Network (ZESN) which sadly had no concrete clauses on what
needed to be changed and how the changed clauses should read.
The Joint Zimbabwe International Electoral Observation
Mission led by Ambassador Johnny Carson and former Liberian president Mrs Ellen
Johnson Sirlieaf, is in the country to finalise their report on the elections
where they are meeting different stakeholders to clear what they referred to as
grey areas.
They have already met the MDC Alliance and they went on to
meet the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Honourable
Ziyambi Ziyambi.
Advocate Mudenda expressed hope that the 9th new parliament
will seize the opportunity for electoral law amendments to ‘ginger’ up
electoral processes saying civil society also missed the opportunity.
He said under section 149 of the Constitution any citizen
has a right to petition Parliament to consider any matter for amendment of any
provision.
He also said he will continue to raise awareness among
citizens on this provision during his outreach programmes and paid tribute to
President Emmerson Mnangagwa for opening up the democratic space as evidenced
in the just ended elections
Turning to the challenges faced in the last electoral
process, Advocate Mudenda sarcastically said Zimbabwe was pleasantly surprised
and disappointed by the renewal of ZIDERA at a time when the new dispensation
is opening up the democratic and business space.
He said the renewal of ZIDERA even before the elections
were concluded and at a time when Zimbabwe was desperate for lines of credit to
resuscitate the economy.
He said the move painted a picture of Zimbabwe as a pariah
state which it is not.
He said the link of ZIDERA to the issue of human rights is
another distortion of the country’s image as Zimbabwe is a member of the global
village and is doing everything to observe human rights especially under
President Mnangagwa’s new dispensation that has pledged to uphold the rule of
law and human rights under the UN Charter.
The Speaker of the National Assembly also disputed the
observer team’s allegations of a highly contested elections saying the idea of
bringing in the ConCourt to rule on the winner is not peculiar to Zimbabwe
alone but the same also happened in the United States between George Bush and
Al Gore and several other countries. zbc
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