Voters reject draft constitution

The Zimbabwean electorate has overwhelmingly rejected a draft constitution proposed by the government of President Robert Mugabe.

An official of the government-appointed Constitutional Committee (CC) told IRIN on Tuesday that 55 percent of the electorate voted "No" to the proposed draft, against 45 percent who voted "Yes". An estimated one million people went to the polls on Saturday and Sunday.

The draft constitution would have consolidated presidential powers and allowed the government to requisition white-owned land for redistribution without compensation.

Nick Ndebele of Zimrights told IRIN the results presented an interesting phenomenon to the Zimbabwean political landscape.

"Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF is understandably shocked by this as they expected rural people to vote "Yes". This could mean that the majority of Zimbabweans, including the rural poor, are fed up with the ruling party and are now clamouring for change," Ndebele said.

Ndebele added that Zimrights was concerned at the possibility of a violent campaign in the run-up to the elections in April. "Both the ruling party and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) will now be squaring up to each other to woo the voters to their parties," he said. "This might result in an
outbreak of violent clashes between the supporters of the two parties."

Ndebele said it was possible ZANU-PF might delay the parliamentary elections by six months to allow the party time to recover from the "No" vote shock as well as to prepare its election machinery for a propaganda assault.

"The 1979 constitution does allow for a six-month delay in the holding of elections, which the ruling party might be tempted to invoke. But this might backfire because at the same time, it would give the opposition more time to galvanise its support base," he said.