LOCAL think-tank Research and Advocacy Unit (Rau) has expressed concern over Zanu PF’s plan to introduce a raft of constitutional changes to the country’s governance charter to suit the ruling party’s needs.
By Everson Mushava
Finance minister Patrick Chinamasa recently disclosed that Zanu PF would soon take advantage of its two-thirds majority in Parliament to revamp the Constitution.
In its research paper titled Is the Party above the law, Rau said Zanu PF party was facing a constitutional crisis and the temptation to tamper with the country’s supreme law to suit the party’s political ends was high.
“This is the clear conclusion to be drawn from the remarks of the Minister of Finance (Chinamasa) recently, and is the danger behind having a two-thirds majority in Parliament,” part of the report dated March 3 reads.
“It is also worrisome that the Zanu PF government still sees the Constitution as a loose leaf folder, to be amended whenever it appears inconvenient.”
Chinamasa last week said the country could be forced to amend the Constitution and remove some clauses, even commissions that he claimed were straining government coffers where an unsustainable 92% was said to be going towards recurrent expenditure.
Rau said disrespect of the country’s laws by the Zanu PF government, which sharply increased at the turn of the century after the party’s controversial land reform programme, was worrisome.
