Civic groups prepared for "mass action"

Civic groups in Zimbabwe are willing and able to take on the government over a new constitution, Thoko Matshe head of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) told IRIN on Tuesday. "We're talking mass action and civil disobedience on a wide scale if government ignores the people," Matshe said. She was speaking after a conference at the weekend - organised by a broad coalition of civic groups and attended by hundreds of campaigners - voted unanimously to press for a new constitution. Matshe said the NCA would now broker consultation over a "people friendly" constitution that it hoped to sell to government by the end of the year. "We need a new constitution that lays out a proper bill of rights, limits the presidency, promotes freedom of expression and gives women in this society equal rights," Matshe said. Early last year, President Robert Mugabe proposed a new constitution which would have increased his powers. It was decisively rejected by referendum after a successful campaign by the NCA. Relations between the NCA and government deteriorated after the poll. In the lead up to the NCA conference, boycotted by the government, the ruling ZANU-PF took out full-page newspaper advertisements saying the NCA had no national mandate to press for reforms. The adverts accused NCA members of taking money from Mugabe's western critics and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to undermine his government. IRIN tried to contact government officials to canvass their views on the NCA, but without success. Despite the government boycott, information minister Jonathan Moyo and presidential spokesman George Charamba were reportedly seen briefly at the conference. "They probably looked in to see how successful their campaign against us had been, they were sorely disappointed," an NCA delegate told IRIN. The two government officials were reportedly jeered by delegates when they were recognised. "We're certainly not a front for the MDC," Matshe said. "The NCA is a credible outfit and we make no bones about the fact we receive funding from many sources, including the Dutch, Danes, Norwegians and Americans." Analysts said that the NCA could be in a position to tackle Mugabe's government. "The NCA has to be one of the broadest-based organisations in the country, if anyone is capable of putting real sustained pressure on Mugabe its them," Masipule Sithole a political scientist at the University of Zimbabwe told IRIN. Trade unionists, academics, church groups, youth organisations, gender activists, business people and farmers were all represented at the conference. "I think things will move quite rapidly now," Sithole said. "The NCA wants a new constitution in place before next year's presidential poll, there's bound to be confrontation because government are totally opposed to the NCA and what it stands for," he added.