Opposition MDC –T leader Douglas Mwonzora has blamed fellow opposition political parties for not mobilising citizens against the Constitutional Amendment Bill Number 2 during the public hearing processes.
Mwonzora was addressing journalists at the party headquarters following the sailing through of the Bill in Senate yesterday.
The MDC –T has received criticism from members of the public and politicians.
“Those people who are criticizing us who are outside Parliament are forgetting that they did the nation a disservice on this issue. First of all this Bill was taken for public hearing, those political parties criticizing us today did not even organise people against this Bill during the public hearings. They sat at home, on twitter on Facebook and on WhatsApp churning hate language.
“They did not for example lobby for the MDC caucus. They concentrated on denigrating MDC MPs, they did not even petition Parliament against this Bill this is one of the avenues available to them they did not do that. They did not organise a demonstration of ten people against this Bill, this is what they could have done. They could not even organise a one man demonstration like Itai Dzamara used to do. They did not do anything they sat on their laurels,” Mwonzora charged.
He accused critics of concentrating on spreading hate and falsehoods on social media, while taking a dig at MDC Alliance deputy presidents accusing them of concentrating on hate speech.
“If we talk of civic society we are talking about a group of competent lawyers in their midst and they are very knowledgeable they were debating this but they were debating on twitter, Facebook and they were not taking advantage of what they should do if they were very serious with opposing this Bill.
“Regarding other political parties what legal advice should be given to Tendai Biti, Welshman Ncube don’t they know that there is petitioning of Parliament, don’t they know that they can demonstrate or picket these are things they know and they chose not to do. They concentrated a lot on hate.” he said.
