Constitution delay necessitating elections - Zanu-PF

PRESIDENT Mugabe will call for elections using the current Constitution if Copac continues to delay completion of the new supreme law, Zanu-PF national chairman Simon Khaya Moyo has said.

Khaya Moyo yesterday said Copac drivers were deliberately ignoring people's views and instead smuggling views that were rejected during the outreach programme.

He made the remarks at a meeting with Norwegian ambassador to Zimbabwe Ingebjorg Stofring.

"If these delays continue, the President can go ahead and dissolve Parliament to pave way for elections using the current Constitution," Cde Khaya Moyo said.

"We cannot continue with this dilly-dallying and shilly-shallying. The President is mandated by the Constitution to dissolve Parliament and call for elections. It has taken too long for the Constitution to be completed."

Khaya Moyo said the delays were caused by some foreigners who wanted to influence the outcome of the Constitution. He said most of the views expressed by the people during the Copac outreach programme had been ignored.

"Virtually all the things people said have been ignored. Instead, they (drafters) are now throwing things into the Constitution whose origin is not known. We believe those things being put in the Constitution are from foreigners who have interests in our internal affairs. We are a country that is operating under a Constitution and we can hold elections using that Constitution because we have been having elections every five years since 1980 using the Constitution. The maximum we can go without elections is March next year because the Constitution says we should have elections after every five years."

Khaya Moyo said the inclusive Government has outlived its tenure.

Zimbabwe, Khaya Moyo said, will not allow foreigners to interfere with the holding of elections because it is a sovereign State.

Khaya Moyo castigated Norway for aligning with the European Union in imposing illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe irrespective of the cordial relations that existed between the two countries since the liberation struggle. He said it was good that the EU realised that the illegal sanctions they imposed on Zimbabwe were unjustified hence their call for dialogue.

"However, there is nothing to be excited about the meeting that was held in Brussels last week because we didn't deserve those sanctions anyway. They are illegal, but we know the issue was about regime change, but our people will not allow that. They are resilient because of what they went through to liberate themselves so they would not want to go through that again," he said.

Ambassador Stofring said their decision to impose the illegal sanctions on Zimbabwe was influenced by their relationship with the EU.

"We are not a member of the EU but most countries that make up the EU are very important to us so we align ourselves with the EU on decisions. We are, however, questioning the impact of sanctions because we believe it is easy to impose sanctions but difficult to remove them."

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