THE SHORTCOMINGS OF THE KARIBA DRAFT CONSTITUTION III. PROCESS The Kariba Draft was written during a clandestine meeting between the principal negotiators of Zimbabwe’s three primary political parties. For this reason, very little is known about the process that went into the creation of the Draft. It has been suggested that no more than six individuals assumed primary responsibility for writing the Draft. The content of the Kariba Draft indicates that the framers of this document used the Constitutional Commission Proposal as the basis of the Draft, with portions being rewritten or imported from Zimbabwe’s current Constitution. The process that led to the creation of the Kariba Draft is inappropriate for two broad reasons: First, and most importantly, Zimbabweans must be given the right to determine the rules by which they will be governed. This view is reflected in the Zimbabwe People’s Charter, which calls for a “people-driven, participatory” process of constitutional reform spearheaded by an inclusive All Stakeholders Commission. The writing of the Kariba Draft by a handful of political elites without consulting the public is an undemocratic usurpation of the right of Zimbabweans to write a constitution for themselves. Second, the Kariba Draft should be rejected because it is based on the Constitutional Commission Proposal, a document that has already been rejected by the people of Zimbabwe. Moreover, as described below, the ways in which the Kariba Draft differs from the Constitutional Commission Proposal generally reflect compromises of democratic principles of governance and further divergence from the will of the people. IV. SUBSTANCE OF THE KARIBA DRAFT As described above, the content and structure of the Kariba Draft are closely tied to the content and structure of the Constitutional Commission Proposal. Over half of the articles in the two documents are identical, and most of the changes that have been made are extremely minor. Therefore, nearly all of the weaknesses that led to the rejection of the Constitutional Commission Proposal are replicated in the Kariba Draft. Despite the broad similarity of the two documents, a number of major changes to the Constitutional Commission proposal were made by the framers of the Kariba Draft. In many cases, these changes involve the replacement of a provision of the Constitutional Commission Proposal with one from the current Constitution. In some places, changes have been made which clarify or strengthen provisions in the Constitutional Commission Proposal. For example, the Kariba Draft adds section 121, which specifies the composition of the Committee on Standing Rules and Orders, a matter which the Constitutional Commission Proposal did not address.1 However, there are many places where changes have been made which weaken the Draft. Extremely worrying are many small changes that 1 [121] Committee on Standing Rules and Orders. 2