The Presidential Running Mate Principle: the way to go for Zimbabwe
Written by Administrator Friday, 17 August 2012 13:56
‘The draft constitution is complete and was completed by a multi-party team. The parties have negotiated enough, have fought enough and have bickered enough, now the people of Zimbabwe must have their chance.’
-Hon Douglas Mwonzora 2012
Political parties to the GPA are failing to speak with one voice on the draft constitution. The ZANU-PF Politburo has already held four meetings to review the draft – on 25th, 27th July, 1st and 8th August which indicate considerable internal disagreement. What has, however, become clear from statements by their lead negotiator, Patrick Chinamasa, and the ZANU-PF spokesperson, Rugare Gumbo, is that the Politburo has decided the party wants substantial “improvements” to the draft. The other two MDCs in the GPA have already given thumps to the draft.
One of the contentious issues is the section that deals with the presidential running mate. Section 5.5 (2) of the draft charter says a presidential candidate has to nominate two running mates who will jointly contest the election with him/her. The new feature in the draft Constitution is that both the President and the Vice Presidents will be elected. However, Zanu PF says it prefers the winning presidential candidate to name his/her vice presidents.
Hon Douglas Mwonzora yesterday applauded this new system at a public meeting organized by The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN). He highlighted that it is clearer on succession than the present system. He went on to say political parties need to drop things that do not take Zimbabwe forward and appreciate the fact that the running mate option guarantees legitimacy in the sense that it involves the electorate who will at the end of the day vote with their eyes wide open to whom they will be voting for. Honorable Mwonzora emphasized that this new system is a tried and tested option which has worked well in other jurisdictions such as Malawi and Ghana which had smooth transfer of power to vice presidents.
In Ghana just a few hours after President Atta Mills was officially announced dead, Mr John Dramani Mahama, who was the vice president, took the oath of office as the new President of Ghana- in line with the principles of Article 60 (6) of the Ghanaian Constitution. Meanwhile, a new President is set to be elected in December 2012 in line with the provisions of the current Ghanaian Constitution. The smooth transfer of power witnessed in Ghana has been applauded as one of the most significant achievements in the historic development of African democracies. Indeed Zimbabwe should draw the following lessons from the Ghanaian example:
- Constitutional guarantees of transfer of power in the event of the death of the President are an effective way of preventing power vacuums which could lead to political instability;
- The ability of a country to live by its constitution is one of the best guarantees for peaceful transitions; and
- The respect of constitutional sanctity and rule of law is one of the best ways of ensuring peace and development in any country
Honorable Mwonzora also dismissed ZANU PF’’s insistence on revisiting the draft constitution as political parties had had their share of negotiation. “The draft constitution that we have is not a product of the MDC alone but a result of two key processes that ZANU-PF participated in through the outreach and negotiation processes. In both instances, ZANU-PF was equally and ably represented by people with a requisite mandate. Given this, it is time for Zimbabweans including those that support ZANU-PF to decide on whether the document is a good or bad draft”, said Honorable Mwonzora.
Qhubani Moyo of the MDC-N added on by saying, ‘The constitution has its grey areas but let us build on it and move forward’. True as it is political actors in Zimbabwe also need to create a culture of constitutionalism and respect for the constitution.
Moyo lastly noted that it is impossible to have more than one draft put to a Referendum and so the idea of ZANU-PF to putting their draft to the Referendum together with the COPAC draft does not move the nation forward as it is against the spirit of consensus that was shown on the 18th of July when all the three political parties endorsed the draft constitution.