Staff Reporter
Zimbabwe Election Support Network (ZESN) has called on the regulation of political parties in Zimbabwe and that there should be formulation of a legal framework to govern that. The development came following calls by some political parties who are expecting Government to fund their operations.
ZESN in a position paper titled “Political Parties Regulation in Zimbabwe” said political parties’ regulation plays an important role in shaping the country’s development trajectory.
“Political parties are crucial actors in Zimbabwe’s democratisation process as they must play a vital role of aggregating and articulating interests of the people and developing competing policy proposals that provide voice and choice for their constituencies. Therefore, they need to be adequately resourced so that they can contribute to shaping the country’s development trajectory. For this to happen, political parties must also be regulated,” reads the paper.
ZESN said the fight for public office and demand for public funding by political parties renders their regulation unavoidable. “One of the areas that need urgent attention to mitigate the growing trend of non-acceptance of election results is the promulgation or amendment of the party financing law”.
The organisation said that currently Zimbabwe African National Union- Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) and Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) are the only beneficiaries of the current law yet there are many political parties in Zimbabwe to date. Therefore there is need for the revision of the clauses that ban private funding of parties and a comprehensive campaign and party funding law based on best practices.
According to this report, political parties themselves must be controlled to ensure that they observe a certain legal and normative framework in terms of their internal functioning, financing as well as its code of conduct.
ZESN said Zimbabwe was still going through a transition and exhibiting low levels of trust amongst and between political parties. ZESN said agitations for the regulation of political parties must be for genuine reasons such as the enhancement of party systems and inter-party relations and building stronger political parties, so that it is not abused by those who have power.
Furthermore, ZANU PF secretary for Legal Affairs Honorable Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana applauded the regulation of political parties in the country saying it is a good move but remains a dream as the Constitution does not make the regulation of political parties a must.
“Regulation of parties is welcome, but the problem is that our Constitution does not compel the regulation of political parties, hence no legal framework exists, there is need to revisit the constitution and make an amendment that’s when we can start to talk about regulation of political parties” he said.
MDC-Alliance spokesperson Fortune Daniel Molokele said there was need to separate institutions governing elections from interference before political parties are regulated while MDC-T vice president Mr Obert Gutu said his party welcomes the idea of regulation.
“As the MDC-T, we do agree that there should be some law that regulates the registration and operation of political parties in Zimbabwe. As it is right now, anyone can wake up one morning, call a press conference and announce that they have formed a political party. Whilst freedom of association and freedom of assembly are fundamental human rights enshrined in the Constitution of Zimbabwe, there’s need to bring some sanity, order and seriousness in the political market by instituting a law that regulates the activities of political parties,” he said.
This sounds like the echoes made for the regulation of churches which are suffering the same issues of lack of accountability and vulnerability of citizens.
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