Sunday, March 17, 2013

Zimbabwe President Mugabe Votes on New Constitution

President Mugabe votes

Saturday, 16 March 2013 13:34
Zimbabwe Sunday Mail

President Mugabe cast his vote for the constitutional referendum at Mhofu Primary School in Highfield, Harare. Speaking to journalists, the Head of State and Government and Commander-in-Chief of the Zimbabwe Defence Forces said he is confident that a new charter will be in place to fulfill the will of the people of Zimbabwe.

He revealed that he voted “yes”, adding that the constitution-making process was people-driven.

“It is the people who made the constitution. We went round asking the people questions: what sort of Parliament do you want? What sort of President do you want? How many terms? Etc. People were giving their answer and when we put the draft together we invited what were called stakeholders to discuss all parts of the constitution and the stakeholders said yes this is what we said and no this is not what we said and adjustments were made and corrections were made,” he said.

President Mugabe said although there had been some concerns that people were not given enough time to read through the constitutional draft, the views that are enshrined in the document came from the people.

"But of course at end of the day, perhaps more time was needed for the people to read the final document, but the views came from the people, the ideas came from the people and so we can’t be blamed for having ignored the people. From the beginning we said the exercise was going to be a people driven exercise and that’s what it has been,” he said.

No comments: