Zimbabwe’s youth sidelined in constitutional reform process

Zimbabwean youth have said that the constitutional reform process led by the Parliamentary Select Committee on the Constitution (COPAC) lacks the voices of the youth and cannot be trusted to deliver a people-driven constitution that is at the core of the success of country’s transitional processes.

Speaking at a discussion forum organised by the Youth Empowerment and Transformation (YET) Trust and Youth Alliance for Democracy in Harare, young people bemoaned that despite the reality that youth account for more than half of the country’s population, they constituted less than 20 per cent of the people who participated in the outreach processes held by COPAC teams across the country.

The youth indicated that COPAC and the government failed to provide a safe space for youth participation following allegations of rampant intimidation across the country. It was submitted that that the process was led by politicians and saw political parties drumming up support for their positions in a way reminiscent to the violent and bloody campaign of the June 2008 runoff elections. This intimidation saw many youth withdrawing from the process in the fear that their involvement would re-ignite the spectre of life-costing political violence now synonymous with the country’s political processes.

Speaking from his experience in the field with outreach teams, Mr Hillary Musarurwa, a youth activist, said he witnessed incidents of unveiled silencing of the youth in the outreach gatherings, in which the youth were ordered not to speak. In these meetings, only a few selected ‘politically correct’ individuals were allowed to speak. His sentiments were echoed by Ms Glanis Changachirere, another youth activist who said that the space was not safe for the participation, especially for young women, who are still in need of healing following acts of rape and torture they faced at the height of the election violence.

The youth further criticised the talking points that were used in soliciting views on youth issues as limiting and misleading. Ms Changachirere said that these talking points did not address the much debated issue of granting quotas for youth participation in decision-making. Instead, those who drafted the questions conveniently chose the less important youth issues to direct the constitutional reform discourse about the issues of the youth.

Capping the general sentiments of the youth speakers and the over 80 youths in attendance, youthful political analyst and Oxford scholar, Philani Zamchiya said, ‘Youth have a moral obligation to stop bad processes.’ He added that COPAC was a bad process and hence must be stopped.

In mitigation, COPAC coordinator, Mr Peter Kunjeku and the chief law officer in the Ministry of Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs, Mr Gova, both said that youth participation in the constitutional reform process is critical and was factored in at the design stage of the current exercise roadmap, hence the Thematic Committee on Youth. The two added that when it became apparent that the youth were not meaningfully participating in the exercise they convened a children’s summit. However, many youths argued that the summit was not significantly representative and had little publicity.

Mr Kunjeku went on to admit that there were a lot of limiting factors to the participation of youth, among them a media blackout that saw adverts for youth popular participation in the exercise being blocked by the monopolistic state-controlled national broadcaster. In order, to compensate for the missed opportunities in the outreach exercise, the COPAC coordinator said that youth organisations were free to submit written position papers for consideration.

The minister of Energy and Power Development Mr Elton Mangoma, who attended in his capacity as an official of the MDC-T, gave some insights into the process from the perspective of his other capacities as a GPA negotiator, co-chair of the COPAC management team and a member of the Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee (JOMIC).

Mangoma admitted that the outreach process of COPAC has failed the test of democracy and was not people-driven. He courted debate when he reiterated that the position of his party was to have a negotiated document to ensure a free and fair election. The minister added that his party will allow a process that is people driven once it gets in power.

The Youth and the Constitution Discussion Forum which was convened by YET in conjunction with the Youth Alliance for Democracy is a first in a series of other platforms under its ‘Transitional Barometer Series’ project, in which youth, government and political parties are brought together to assess and assert the role of youth in the country’s transitional period.

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