Staff Writer
Recalls have had a negative impact on Zimbabwe’s electoral democratic processes and have led to the fragmentation rather than the intended consolidation and stability of opposition political parties.
This was concluded by the Zimbabwe Election Support Network in a document titled: Recalls, Subsequent By-elections, Lessons learnt and Insights into democratic Processes in Zimbabwe.
At least five modest contributions were made.
“First, recalls are enshrined in the constitution as anti-defection laws. Second, the party has sovereign power to recall representatives it nominated as candidates during the election which is against best international practise.
“It is a party led initiative rather than a citizen led initiative.
“Third, recalls have become a strategy of dealing with party competition where politicians find fertile grounds to reverse the previous election. Yet for an election to be democratic it must be irreversible.
“Fourth, recalls have undermined the right of elected representatives to freedom of association and expression with many of them opting for party loyalty over the interests of the electorate or constitutional principles. This militates against the view that once elected leaders must be representatives of the Zimbabwean People as a whole not of the political party that nominated them as candidates.
“Fifth, loss of confidence in electoral processes and erosion of democratic and legitimate representative governance in the subsequent by elections.
Consequently, the ideal route will be to repeal the recall mandate in the constitution. However, the country must avoid blanket recall laws which will cause capture by ZANU PF as a dominant party-state,” the document reads.
The network said given that Zimbabwe was still a semi-democratic state and not a mature democracy high threshold conditions would be necessary.
“It is therefore argued that Zimbabwe’s laws need to be reviewed in order to entitle the elected representatives to be led by the constitution itself and citizens’ will not necessarily by their party position as is common in most mature democracies.
“In the case of exceptional circumstances, it should only be the people of a concerned constituency that can recall an elected representative through a democratic, participatory and transparent high threshold citizen-initiated process, not the political party let alone dominant groups within a party that nominated his or her candidature.
“Regulations should provide for recall origins; reasonable timelines or a regulated period for recalls; substantive grounds for recalls; petition thresholds; petition verification; a recall referendum; judicial review; the by-election and curbing repeated calls,” the network concluded.
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