“2013 Constitution Is A Dictator’s Decree”
12 June 2022
Spread the love

By Wilbert Mukori- Honour your father and mother and above all honour the truth!

“Contrary to the nonsense I was reading on social media, they (Zanu-PF) approached Alex and I just felt that out of respect, after the period of mourning if they continue, I will set the record straight,” Hopewell Chin’ono reportedly told the guests at the late Magaisa’s memorial lecture.

“We know the people. We have got names and some of them came through me. But Alex said, ‘No. I am a Zimbabwean. If you do things right, you do not need Magaisa’s support. Do not look for individuals. Do the right thing and the whole country will support you’.”

Well, the whole nation is certainly waiting to hear why MDC failed to implement even one meaningful democratic reform during the 2008 to 2013 Government of National Unity (GNU). This was the golden opportunity to dismantle the Zanu PF dictatorship and it is treasonous that the opportunity was callously wasted.

It is a historic fact that Mugabe bribed the MDC leaders with the trappings of high office, the gravy train, and, with their snouts in the feeding trough, the forgot about the reforms. 

“Mazivanhu eMDC adzidza kudya anyerere!” (MDC leaders have learned to enjoy the gravy train good life, they will not rock the boat!) boasted Zanu PF cronies when asked why MDC leaders were not implementing the reforms.

Dr Alex Magaisa was the MDC T leader, late Dr Richard Morgan Tsvangirai’s special adviser during the GNU. What advice did Dr Magaisa give MDC T on reforms?

It is possible that Dr Magaisa advised MDC T to implement the democratic reforms but his advice was not heeded. SADC leaders, amongst many others, repeatedly warned the MDC leaders on the need to implement reforms during the GNU but their warning fell on deaf ears.

If it was that Dr Maagaisa gave MDC T leaders the right advice but was ignored, then why did he not do the only decent thing and resign? He has had the opportunity since the end of the GNU to come clean on why not even one token reform was implemented during the GNU; he has not done so.

And so, unless we see the evidence to the contrary, MDC leaders failed to implement even one token reform during the 2008 to 2013 GNU because they were corrupt and breathtakingly incompetent. Dr Alex Magaisa, as Dr Tsvangirai’s chief advisers, played his part in this treasonous sell out!

It is all very well for Chin’ono to say Magaisa never sold-out to Zanu PF; he must square the circle and reconcile that with the historic fact that not even one token reform was implemented during the GNU.

 Speak to the same audience, top human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa said: “I believe that we should have regular lectures to celebrate each other. Alex was a vital core in the (2013 Zimbabwe) Constitution-making process which culminated in what we now have which I consider a decent Constitution.”

I am not a lawyer and am given to believe Paul Mangwana’s boast that the constitution was “dictated” by Robert Mugabe. Mangwana is himself a lawyer and was Zanu PF’s MP and co-chair in the parliamentary committee that drafted the constitution. Mugabe was a ruth tyrant and dictator and not the one to dictate “a decent constitution”.

Indeed, the 2013 Zimbabwe constitution is a dictator’s decree and hence the reason why it failed its number one test – failed deliver a free, fair and credible elections in July 2013, just four months after its 95% approval in the March 2013 referendum.