Opposition MDC –T leader Douglas Mwonzora has defended Members of Parliament from his political outfit following massive criticism from a section of the public who accused the legislators of selling out by voting in favor of Constitutional Amendment Bill Number 2 in Parliament yesterday.
The Bill, viewed as giving more power to President received a total of 191 votes predominantly from Zanu PF legislators and a sizeable number of opposition members.
Some provisions in the Bill include the removal of a Clause on running mates, extension of the women’s quota and addition of 10 seats as part of the youth quota among others.
Addressing the media at the party headquarters today, Mwonzora defended MDC-T legislators who voted in favour of the Bill saying they faced a genuine dilemma as the party supported four of the six provisions.
“Out of those six issues the MDC supports four, the MDC supports women’s quota, youth quota, the quota for women in the councils and supports devolution. However the MDC does not support unnecessary amendments of the Constitution it is our view and it has always been our view that in any amendment there must be wide consultation. There must be dialogue and involvement of stakeholders before any amendment can be made.
“We also think that Constitutional amendments cannot be made to solve internal party issues like what the running mate does to apparently resolve issues of succession within a political party. We also don’t think that Zanu PF is right to use its super majority but our MPs were faced with a genuine dilemma so was the MDC as a party.
“At the stage that the Bill had reached it had to be voted as a whole in other words it was not divisible so the choices that faced each individual MP was a choice between rejecting everything in the Bill and therefore in the process rejecting the women’s quota, youth quota and devolution or accepting the entire Bill and in the process accepting the running mate and Judges clause it was a genuine dilemma that our MPs were faced with,” said Mwonzora.
He said the MDC-T will try to use the Senate through dialogue with Zanu PF Senators to deal with the running mate and the appointment of Judges clause.
