DEMANDS by some opposition political parties that they
should be involved in the printing of ballot papers to be used in this year’s
harmonised elections are outrageous as they are fully aware of the independence
of constitutional bodies such as the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec), which
they helped to create during the era of the Government of National Unity.
In recent weeks, MDC-T faction led by Mr Nelson Chamisa and
its alliance partners have been demanding to be involved in the ballot paper
tendering process ostensibly as a way of testing the freeness and fairness of
the polls.
Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Permanent
Secretary Mr George Charamba yesterday said political parties advocating for
such an arrangement should first downgrade the constitutional commissions to
ordinary statutory bodies by way of amending the constitution.
In any case, Mr Charamba said, the demands were devoid of
merit as they were not backed by any law.
“They (opposition parties) must go back to the Zimbabwean
people and say we have had enough of the independence of these constitutional
bodies because we now want to participate in tenders,” said Mr Charamba.
“But to try and suggest that their involvement in tendering
process is the test of freeness and fairness of elections is quite preposterous
and this Government will err on the side of defending the constitutional
inviolability of these commissions. Besides, there is no law that accommodates
these demands by the opposition.
“What the law provides for is not the tendering process for
ballot material, rather it is the transparent management of the material once
it’s done and this takes many forms. Firstly, we have election agents who are
expected to keep an eagle eye on the electoral process from start to finish
insisting probity at every stage.
“Secondly, there are processes of ensuring that all
participating parties are satisfied that there is nothing stuffed in ballot
boxes before polling, during polling, after polling and before counting. The
cure cannot be by overrunning constitutional bodies in their processes. The
cure is by ensuring that agents are fully and competently deployed.
“Also on the distribution of ballot papers, that
information will be made known to all players and to say so is not guessmate
Zec, it is simply to highlight certain standards of transparency.”
Mr Charamba said it was awkward that the demand was coming
especially from MDC-T which insisted on the setting up of the constitutional
commissions during the GNU era.
He said it was important to remind MDC-T and other
political parties that the constitutional commissions came into being at their
insistence.
Said Mr Charamba: “I suppose some people have very short
memories and because they have very short memories Government really wants to
refresh their failing memories. Before GNU, we didn’t have constitutional
commissions in our executive system. The constitutional commissions came about
on the insistence of then opposition which was now a partner in Government
under the GNU arrangement.
“It was a very strident demand from both MDCs which as you
know had very pronounced component of lawyers and the demand was that we must
curve and station constitutional commissions around major rights that needs to
be protected in the constitution. As a result, we had the various commissions
most notably Zec, Zimbabwe Media Commission Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption
Commission, Human Rights Commission and a few more.”
Mr Charamba continued: “The idea behind creating those
constitutional commissions was to involve Parliament in their constitution so
that their creation went beyond the interests and dictates of the Executive
which is why the Standing Rules and Orders Committee of Parliament became a
part appointing authority in respect of all commissions. The only difference
was the degree of participation of the SROC in respect of each of these
commissions. So, there was a deliberate attempt to insulate these commissions at
the stage of constituting them by involving Parliament.
“Secondly, the other level of insulating these commissions
against incumbents was to upgrade them from being statutory bodies to being
constitutional bodies which meant if the Government of the day undermines their
independence then that would amount to a breach of the constitution, in which
case it will be actionable through due parliamentary process.
“A third way of ensuring and underpinning their
independence was to require that they report to Parliament and not line
ministries which really fortified their independence. The last way of
fortifying their independence was to house them under the Ministry of Justice
way from line ministries for budgetary requirements.
“This was really an administrative decision. Now, if the
intention was to underwrite the autonomy of constitutional bodies and this on
the insistence of the then opposition which was now part of the GNU, where are
these voices which are now demanding a reversal and compromise of that independent
status coming from?
“If the intention is to re-think the subject, then you
don’t run ahead of the law by changing practices, you actually change the
constitution and downgrade these commissions to become ordinary statutory
bodies. That has not happened. But also it is very unfair for the opposition to
expect this society to wax and whine on the basis of whim.” Herald
0 comments:
Post a Comment