18th Amendment

Amendment number 18 to the Zimbabwean constitution has come with a lot of surprises especially to the organisations advocating for change in Zimbabwe.

Lets first look at some of its provisions.

Amendment 18 will:

i. Unify Presidential,Parliamentary,Senatorial,Mayoral, and Council elections. This means the lessening of the presidential term while it increases the number of members in the upper and lower houses of Assembly.

ii.Increases the number of members of Parliament from 150 to 210 and that of senate members from 66 to 93.

iii. Make way for the appointment of a Human Rights commission

iv. Change the title of the office of the Ombudsman to that of the Public Protector amongst other things.

v. Parliament will elect a Presidential successor to finish the term of the president who has suddenly died, resigned or be given a vote of no confidence.

The arguments making rounds are that while the unification of elections is most welcome and desirable it will cut down on government spending on tax payers money, the additional changes will add even more burden on the fiscus in that it increases the number of Upper and Lower houses of assembly members .The other changes are not urgent to the Zimbabwean crises which the amendment does not address, for example the fast declining health delivery system, the breakdown in the education system, increasing unemployment levels, high numbers of HIV/AIDS infections and related deaths and last but not least does not contribute much to the need for a wholesome overhaul of the present constitution.

While the amendment was passed unopposed into law, the major opposition party MDC factions state that a lot of changes were made to the original draft which allowed them to agree to it. Some of these changes include:

i. The holding of all elections at the same time instead of the council elections in January and the Presidential and Parliamentary in March which the MDC argues ZANU PF would want to use as a gauge for its support before the major elections.
ii. There shall be no presidential appointees, all members of the houses' of assembly will be elected by the electorate or parliament.
iii. The Human Rights commission will be elected by Parliament.
iv. Instead of the electorate going back to the polls to replace a President who still had sometime left in office, his successor will be elected on their behalf by the parliamentarians.

While this is yet another piecemeal alteration to the legal framework of the land, the opposition says it has been promised a brand new, people driven and democratic constitution before 2008 elections.

Meanwhile civic groups have cried foul and claim they are being left out of the processes for change which was initiated by SADC. They say they deserve a voice in the talks as ZANU PF and the two factions of the MDC are not fully representative of all the people of Zimbabwe and the country's problems are not purely political in nature.

Youths, please "Speak Your Mind"on the above issues by sending us your opinions.