The adoption of the report followed two days of debate by
both the National Assembly and Senate.
The ad hoc committee included representatives of Zanu PF,
the MDC-A and the CCC, roughly in proportion to the number of legislators who
take their whip in Parliament, plus a representative of the 18 senator chiefs
who do not belong to a political party. This all-party approach produced a lot
of consensus and unanimity.
The committee was described as ad hoc, since it was a
once-off, specially appointed. There is no permanent committee that studies
delimitations, which take place every 10 years, so a special temporary
committee representing all potential views was needed.
In the report, the special committee said ZEC failed to
follow procedures that include delimiting some ward boundaries below the
maximum and minimum thresholds as stipulated by the Constitution and also noted
that it did not provide sufficient information to justify the changes in ward
and constituency boundaries it made.
Parliamentarians that contributed to the debate echoed
similar sentiments raised by the committee citing situations that occurred in
their own constituencies or provinces. After yesterday’s debate, legislators
voted to adopt the ad-hoc committee’s report including the issues raised by
legislators. Parliament was recalled early to study and debate the report.
Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ziyambi
Ziyambi said the adopted report will be forwarded to the President after
compilation of issues raised.
“What has happened is that when the report was submitted to
the President he caused it to be submitted in Parliament which we did on
January 6 and Parliament resolved to come up with a committee which was made up
of a few individuals to look into the report, come up with recommendations
which would then be put to the Houses to see whether they accept them or not.
“What has been happening in the past two days is that both
Houses, the National Assembly and Senate, have been debating that report from
the ad-hoc committee with a view of adopting it or rejecting it. So what has
happened after the debate is that the Houses resolved that let’s submit the
report as per the recommendations from the ad-hoc committee to His Excellency
for onward transmission to ZEC detailing areas that Parliament wants corrected
by ZEC,” he said.
He said the next course of action would not be determined
by Parliament.
“Our job is not to look at timeframes but to do what is
required of us to do by the Constitution. What was required of us was to look
at the preliminary report, make our recommendations and submit them to the
President. Parliament does not dictate to the President what to do after that,”
Minister Ziyambi said.
According to the Constitution the President will study
Parliament’s recommendations and then inform ZEC which of those concerns have
merit.
The Constitutional procedures then is that ZEC will effect
any corrections to the report and thereafter present the final delimitation
report to the President for gazetting.
In its report, the committee said issues raised,
particularly those inconsistent with provisions of Section 161 of the
Constitution, will be resolved before the finalisation of the report on the
delimitation exercise. This section goes into some detail in a number of
clauses over how the boundaries or constituencies and wards are to be
determined.
“As espoused in Section 119 of the Constitution, Parliament
has an obligation to protect the Constitution and ensure that the State and all
institutions and agencies of Government at every level, act constitutionally
and in the national interest,” the ad-hoc committee said in its report.
The ad-hoc committee also noted that ZEC had used figures
of registered voters instead of the entire population as envisaged in the
Constitution.
“Section 161 (1) of the Constitution requires delimitation
to take place as soon as possible after a population census. Population is a
crucial consideration for delimitation and is listed in Section 161 (6) (f) as
one of the factors to be considered in attaining equal number of voters in a
constituency or ward.
“The population census contemplated in this section is the
Final Census report. The Committee noted that ZEC considered the registered
voters’ population and not the total population. According to the report, they
only used the census preliminary report to correlate the registered voters’
population with the adult population.
“The use of the selective segment of the population census
which is referred to as the adult population in the ZEC report is perceived to
be a non-conformity to the constitutional values and principles enunciated in
Section 3 (2) (j) and (k) which relates to the equitable sharing of national
resources, including land and devolution funds respectively.
“A population census measures the entire population
including non-voters and children who are also affected by delimitation of
electoral boundaries in respect of service delivery,” the report reads.
The committee also noted that ZEC had not uniformly applied
the threshold that no constituency or ward may have more than 20 percent more
or fewer registered voters than other constituencies or wards. Herald
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