By Doug Coltart
Constitutional Amendment Bill No. 3 is a brazen attempt to reverse the gains of the liberation struggle and entrench a system of Minority Rule.
In this article, and in the links attached, I am going to explain why.
Now, because I have seen many mischaracterisations of my argument, I must state from the outset that my argument is not that an indirect system of election is inherently undemocratic, but rather that the specific system created by #CAB3 is inherently undemocractic.
This is because it takes away the people’s right to vote for the President and gives it to an undemocratic and unaccountable Parliament while simultaneously creating an unaccountable President vested with vast unchecked powers. We need to understand CAB3 as a unified scheme, whose clauses operate together to take away #OneManOneVote.
It does so in several ways:
1. It increases the President’s control over ELECTIONS through taking key electoral functions (voter registration and delimitation) away from ZEC (which, although its execution has not always been up to scratch at least has legal safeguards) and gives them to two bodies appointed by the President (Registrar General and new Delimitation Commission). Rather than addressing the problem of disputed elections and ZEC’s lack of independence, it exacerbates the proplem. Using the tools of gerrymandering, a non-independent Delimitation Commission could entrench Minority Rule through the manner in which constituency boundaries are drawn. It already began under ZEC in 2023, but clearly ZEC did not go far enough for the liking of some and so they want to move delimitation to an even less independent body. This means that the Members of Parliament who will be electing the President will NOT have been elected through a democratic process and may well represent a MINORITY of the population.
2. It creates a Presidential electoral system that is institutionally vulnerable to capture by kleptocrats whereby someone who has ZERO mandate from the people (is not voted for by the people), who has NEVER been put to the people (is not required to be nominated at the time of going to the Parliamentary election), and may even have been REJECTED by the people (not required to be an MP), could become the President if they convince just 186 Members of Parliament to vote for them (a simple majority of a joint sitting of Parliament). In a political context where those with vast (unexplained) wealth flaunt their influence over State institutions (including brazenly defying the directives of State-institutions e.g. Wicknell “selling” vehicles for $100 in defiance of ZimPaper’s directive to its employees), it is not far fetched to say that the Presidentcy may be for sale to the highest bidder. And CAB3 even builds in a monitoring and evaluation mechanism for the kleptocrat who wishes to buy state power: because the vote for the President is NOT required to be by secret ballot (like it is for the Speaker of Parliament) and so the kleptocrat who has bought 186 MPs can actually monitor whether they deliver on what they have been paid to do. Most worryingly of all, it opens the door even to foreign oligarchs or state’s to buy a pre-paid President to deliver Zimbabwe’s natural resources to them.
3. It makes Parliament undemocratic by packing the upper house of Parliament (the Senate) with Presidential appointees, increasing the Executive’s influence over the Legislature and ensuring that the ruling party would only need 30% of the vote to retain control.
It does so in two ways:
(a) Firstly, it gives the President unfettered power to appoint an additional 10 Senators who are completely unelected. These Senators have ZERO democratic mandate, because they derive their legitimacy from a President who in turn derives his or her legitimacy from the very Parliament they are being appointed to – this circular arragement is absurd! This clause is simply a backdoor to smuggle into Parliament people who were rejected by the people in their party (such as Ziyambi Ziyambi in 2023) or rejected by their constitutents (such as Mthuli Ncube in 2023).
(b) Secondly, by stipping traditional leaders of the requirement that they must be non-partisan not only creates an untenable position for their role as quasi-judicial officers in communities, but it also strips them of the proptection that the requirement provided for them to represent their communities interests in the Senate (rather than the interests of their appointing authority, the President). Without that protection, the 18 Chiefs in the Senate essentially become political functionaries of the President.
This means that the President would have undue influence over 28 out of 90 Senators, before even a single vote is cast. This means that the President’s party only needs to win 18 seats of the Senate’s 60 democratically elected seats to gain control of the Senate. These 60 seats in the Senate are elected via proportional representation based on the vote cast for the National Assembly seats. To get those 18 PR Senate seats they need to control the Senate, ZANU PF would only need about 30% of the vote cast for National Assembly MPs.
Now, when you combine that with the President’s control over the voters roll and delimitation (see point 1), this means that the President’s party could retain control of Parliament as a whole (and then by extention the whole of the Executive, and the Judiciary, and the entire State) with a mere 30% of the vote cast at an election.
4. How would they secure control over the Judiciary too? Well, CAB3 answers that too: it gives the President unfettered power to appoint judges. It removes the requirement that the public, you and me, must be involved in the appointment of judges – through public nominations and public interviews and a closed list from the JSC from which the President must choose judges. Instead, it gives all the power to to appoint judges to all-powerful President NOT elected by the people, but by an UNDEMOCRATIC Parliament. This strikes are the core of judicial independence!
5. Scariest of all, is that we may never even have another election again! Why do I say so? Because Parliament has no power to extend its own mandate — and the Constitution explictly says so — yet, through CAB3, Parliament is attempting to extend its own mandate from 5 years to 7 years (as well as the mandate of the President and Councilors). The Constitution says incumbants can’t benefit from such an extention and that if you want to change that rule it must go to a referendum, but Parliament is attempting to deprive the people from having a say through a referendum using an “ouster clause” which effectively says “We know the Constitution says we can’t do this, but we are gonna do it anyway”. If they get away with that, what will stop them from extending their own mandate (again) in 2030 without going back to the people (again)? What will stop them from never coming back to the people ever again?
Therefore, when taken together, CAB3 creates a system of Minority Rule and is a complete reversal of #OneManOneVote. It strikes at the very core of the ideals of the liberation struggle and it takes us back to a system of governance in which an economic elite hold all the power and wealth to the exclusion of the vast majority of citizens.
Our current system far from perfect. We are already deep in a hole of bad governance. But rather than being a ladder (providing solutions to get out of the hole we are in), CAB3 is a jackhammer (taking us even deeper into the depths of bad governance when we thought we had already hit rock bottom)!
Zimbabweans must come together from all walks of life to say NO and to cast a VISION of a Zimbabwe in which we ALL have a say, in which we ALL have opportunity, in which we ALL can pursue a better life. Whether you are old or young, a supporter of ZANU PF or the opposition, from urban areas or rural areas, black or white or Shona or Ndebele (or any other ethnic group), we all need to come together for the sake of our nation and for our children’s future. Churches need to find their courage, trade unions need to tap into their organising capacity, civil society needs to find its voice. And we, the people of Zimbabwe, need to use our Constitution to defend our Constitution; we need to use our rights to defend our rights.
There is HOPE! Our Constitution provides us with all the tools to defend it — principally, section 59. We must just find the courage to do so.
And the God of justice still sits on the throne! He sees, he knows, he’ll judge. He will still be on the throne whether we defeat CAB3 or not. And the duty to continue fighting for justice will continue whether we defeat CAB3 or not.
God is working out his purposes throughout history — through people who are willing to listen, and to follow him, to pursue his path of peace, justice and righteousness, no matter the cost.
May God give us courage and guidance.
#NoToCAB3 #NoTo2030 #ZimSaysNo
YES to PEACE! YES to JUSTICE! YES to RESPECT for the PEOPLE!
https://x.com/i/status/2056335204256497990
Why constitution amendment bill 3 takes away One Man One Vote
