Rights group to protest Zimbabwe reforms

HARARE (AFP) — A leading rights group in Zimbabwe vowed Wednesday to campaign against the way a new constitution is being drafted for the southern African country under a recent power-sharing deal.

The National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), an umbrella group of rights bodies, churches and other activists, said it should not be written by parliamentarians but on the basis of public consultations.

Lovemore Madhuku, the group's chairman, said he would lead a campaign against the constitution, which should go to a referendum next year.

"The NCA will campaign for a No vote, because any document that comes from a defective process is defective," Madhuku told a news conference.

"We are going to start a campaign of opposing this process. We will obviously be holding demonstrations," he added.

On Sunday, parliamentary speaker Lovemore Moyo announced the creation of a 25-member committee to spearhead the constitutional reforms.

The committee includes parliamentarians loyal to both President Robert Mugabe and the new Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai -- longtime rivals who formed a unity government in February.

Moyo said that civic groups like the NCA would be consulted during the drafting process, but Madhuku complained that the process lacked transparency and was too focused on politicians.

"The current process is a parliament-driven process. Others are embracing it, however the NCA will not participate in this at all," he said.

"This process is not transparent. This process is parliament-driven, which is being done by politicians, and not by the people."

Under Mugabe and Tsvangirai's power-sharing deal, Zimbabwe must draft a new constitution to be tabled in parliament by February 2010.

In 2000, Zimbabweans rejected a constitution backed by Mugabe after critics including the NCA argued that the charter gave the president too much power.

That led to a wave of farm invasions in which commercial farmers were pushed off the land, accused by Mugabe supporters of having lobbied against the proposal.

In the 1990s, the NCA led its own process of holding public meetings in towns and villages across the country to draft a new charter that Mugabe refused to accept.