32 Furthermore, the President has so much power such that he can easily override a decision by parliament. For example, he can refuse to sign a law that has been agreed on in parliament. The President has wide powers to override the decisions of parliament regardless of the fact that he rarely sits in parliament and will not be there to hear the debates. MPs seem unable to question executive decisions, and it is therefore difficult to expect the public to question their MPs when parliament is virtually useless and the MPs themselves cannot question the President49. The lack of questioning decisions has become a culture in Zimbabwe, in the views of the victims, and it will take a long time before this can be reversed. It gives those in power an excuse to do as they please. Most decisions apparently made by MPs are actually made by the leaders in their political parties, and the MPs are told how they will exercise their vote in parliament, regardless of their own personal opinions or their constituents. As mentioned earlier, government capitalises on ignorance; citizens do not know that they can attend parliament, and that they can contribute to prospective legislation through their MPs or active lobbying. The biased media that sends out mixed, and often incorrect, messages reinforce this. Although there are parliamentary information centres across the country and all parliamentary information is found there, these places have been turned into political bases. In many cases, when the opposition MPs try to meet their constituents at these centres, the police under POSA, disperse them. The victims felt that this intolerance was not confined to Parliament. When civil society organisations try to have meetings they are viewed with suspicion and gatherings are not allowed to organise effectively to determine the people’s demands and how to get delivery. If there are no gatherings allowed then participation is difficult and control of the decision makers is curtailed. The participants were clear that democracy should not give a blank cheque to decision makers so that they can do as they please until their term of office expires. The problem with democracy as many understand it, is that too much emphasis is placed on elections or the competitive part of it, and there is a failure to concentrate on the reasons behind the holding of elections. Furthermore, in a good democracy, there should be continued participation in the political process between elections, and pressure applied to ensure that the government policies promised during the campaign period are implemented. As regards consultation, citizens are rarely given a chance to contribute in the making of the monetary and fiscal policy; these are simply dictated to them. The budget is discussed publicly, but not the expenditure of government and there is poor access to this information. It is therefore impossible to criticise the government, as nobody knows how much is being spent. The victims generally expressed views suggesting that they had little control over decision makers, and had clear ideas of what problems in this regard were apparent in Zimbabwe. Protecting citizens equality and their ability to control decision makers It was clearly stated that citizens do not feel their rights are adequately protected; there are freedoms guaranteed to people in the Constitution, but these are paper-thin. These rights are not enforced by the law enforcement agents, and, in some cases, these agents are the very culprits infringing people’s rights. Worse still, laws are used selectively, with perpetrators of violence having been protected; they are often given Presidential amnesty and impunity. Even reporting a perpetrator of violence to the police does not ensure that they will arrest that person. In fact, the person making the report is frequently the one that is arrested if the perpetrator is a member of the ruling party. 49 The most startling recent example of accommodation to the Executive has occurred over the selection of the second VicePresident. Robert Mugabe decreed that this should be a woman, but a faction within ZanuPF resisted this. The “resisters” have either been suspended or disciplined, and the results of several provincial elections have been reversed. IDASA: Zimbabwe at the Cross-Roads: Views of Zimbabwean citizens on democracy and transitional justice.