ZANU-PF approves senate, more constitutional changes promised

Zimbabwe's ruling ZANU-PF is pushing ahead with its plans for constitutional reform, and has approved the creation of a 65-member senate, which will serve as an upper house of parliament. ZANU-PF Secretary for Administration Didymus Mutasa told IRIN that the party's Central Committee agreed on the creation of the new house last week, and would submit the proposal to cabinet for approval before it was tabled in parliament. "The creation of the Senate will happen as President Mugabe indicated before the [March 2005 legislative] elections. We now have a two-thirds parliamentary majority, and we will use it to improve the governance of our people - reviving the Senate is one way of doing it," said Mutasa. Each of Zimbabwe's 10 provinces will provide five elected senators, while eight traditional leaders will be elected from the Chief's Council. The two metropolitan governors for Harare and Bulawayo would also have seats, and Mugabe would appoint "five more members from special interest groups, like farmers and other key sectors of the economy", said Mutasa. Mugabe was quoted by national television last week as saying that creating an upper parliamentary chamber was only one of the sweeping changes his party intended to make in the post-election period. Other parts of the constitution lined up for tackling included legislation relating to land acquisition and resettlement. "Through the overwhelming mandate we got from the people, we must now proceed to purposefully effect constitutional changes to allow for the better management of national affairs," Mugabe was quoted as saying. He said land-related amendments would include the abolition of private ownership rights, to pave the way for nationalisation. Mugabe noted that "ceaseless litigation" from former white farmers against the compulsory acquisition of their properties had slowed the government's land redistribution programme, which began in 2000. "We need finality to the land reform programme. At the moment we are having none of it because of farmer court appeals. This amounts to legal delaying tactics, if the farmers are still appealing to the courts," Mugabe said. The government's land reform programme targeted the colonial legacy of land ownership, in which a small group of largely white commercial farmers owned vast tracts of the country's most fertile land, but was accompanied by violence and intimidation. Political analysts said ZANU-PF was keen to change the Land Acquisition Act because several farmers who had challenged the expropriation of their farms had won their cases in the Administrative Court. Over 5,000 land acquisition cases dating back to 2000 were still waiting to be heard. Commenting on the reintroduction of the Senate, South African-based political analyst Daniel Molokela said President Mugabe was fulfilling a pre-election promise to his party. "The Senate was abandoned in the early 1980s because it was burdensome and protracted. In trying to paper over the rifts that threatened the party before the March elections, Mugabe promised that the Senate would be re-created to accommodate party members who lost the internal primary elections. He is doing just that," said Molokela. Economic analyst and opposition member of parliament Eddie Cross said the country could not afford the perks and salaries of additional legislators. The National Constitutional Assembly, a lobby group, has also repeatedly slammed plans for the Senate. It has called on Zimbabweans to support calls for drafting a new constitution, arguing that the current document hands far too much power to the president.