Mugabe angered by supporters

2009-07-13 22:52

Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai expressed dismay on Monday over the disruption of a conference on the drafting of a new constitution by a group of Mugabe supporters.

The first day of the two-day stakeholder conference in Harare was suspended after hundreds of youth members of Mugabe's Zanu-PF party stormed the venue, shouted down a speaker and doused delegates with water.

Speaking on state television on Monday night after meeting with Tsvangirai, Mugabe said: "We will not brook nonsense in future. Unnecessary quarrels should be a thing of the past."

Tsvangirai also addressed Zimbabweans on television, saying the incident undermined "the spirit and credibility" of the power-sharing agreement between his Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and Zanu- PF, and that he hoped the conference would resume unhindered.

The youth, who had been bussed in from rural areas, began their protest as parliament speaker Lovemore Moyo of the MDC attempted to deliver the opening address. They drowned him out with revolutionary songs.

Re-writing the Constitution

Some of the protestors accused the MDC of attempting to write a constitution that would deny them the right to land, referring to the party's disapproval of Mugabe's lawless land reform policy.

Veterans of the country's 1970s independence war, who led the run on white-owned farms starting in 2000, called for the constitutional discussions to be halted for at least three months, claiming the process had been hijacked by the West "to reverse the gains of the liberation struggle".

"That was done by those who do not want the constitutional process to go ahead," said Tendai Biti, MDC secretary-general and finance minister in the coalition government formed by Mugabe and Tsvangirai.

Under the unity agreement that Mugabe and Tsvangirai signed last September and implemented in February, Zimbabwe is supposed to write a new constitution by July 2010.

Zanu-PF has been resisting the MDC's attempts to overhaul the constitution, calling instead for an old draft review - that leaves Mugabe's powers intact - to be implemented.
 

- SAPA