HARARE – Parliamentary speaker Lovemore Moyo insisted Monday that the House would press ahead with nomination of candidates to various commissions meant to reshape and democratise Zimbabwe’s politics, amid signs of discord within the governing coalition over the reforms.

Moyo said Parliament will next month announce dates when it shall interview candidates, rejecting weekend reports by the official Sunday Mail newspaper that the nomination process had been suspended to give political parties time to come up with a mutually acceptable formula to select people to sit on the commissions.   

“It is their own imagination and dreams,” Moyo said of the reports by the newspaper, which although owned by the government is tightly controlled by President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party and often reflects the views of the hardliner wing of the party.

“The next stage for us is that within two weeks we will be able to tell you when the next interviews are due. Around the 1st of September we will have the date. We are doing the process of shortlisting the candidates,” said Moyo, who is also chairman of the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC party.

ZANU PF, MDC-T and a breakaway MDC faction led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara formed a power-sharing government last February to ease political tensions in Zimbabwe and rebuild the country’s battered economy.

In addition to reviving the economy, the coalition government is supposed to write a new and democratic constitution for Zimbabwe and appoint several commissions that will among other things oversee the media, work to promote human rights and manage future elections.

The four commissions provided for under a Constitutional Amendment Number 19 that established the power-sharing government are the Zimbabwe Media Commission (ZMC), Independent Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (IZEC), Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) and the Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC).

Once the commissions and the proposed new constitution are in place the government will call fresh elections with the whole process that began in February expected to last between 18 to 24 months. 

But the Sunday Mail raised fears the process could be delayed. The paper quoting parliamentary clerk Austin Zvoma and some unnamed sources said nomination of candidates had been suspended and that the coalition partners might have to forward nominees for appointment to the commissions on based proportional representation.

But MDC-T spokesman Nelson Chamisa said the party was not aware of suspension of the nomination process, in a sign of brewing conflict over the political process that has lagged far behind economic reforms.

Moyo, who spoke after a meeting of Parliament’s standing orders and rules committee that he chairs and which is in charge of the nominations, said the committee the had come with an improved formula to select candidates for outstanding commissions after it sat two weeks ago to nominate candidates for the media commission.

“It was a normal meeting but a special one in the sense that it came up with methodologies to select the commissions still outstanding – after the ZMC. No major changes (to the ZMC methodology.) We want to be more thorough to avoid confusion,” he said.

Nomination of ZMC candidates has been mired in controversy after ZANU PF party protested against the selection process after several of its allies failed to make it to the final list of nominees.

Mugabe is supposed to appoint the ZMC from names submitted to him by Moyo’s committee. But presidential spokesman George Charamba suggested Mugabe might not act on the names submitted following complains by ZANU PF. 

The slow pace of political reforms is one of the reasons cited by rich Western nations for refusing to give direct financial support to the Harare administration and for not lifting visa and financial sanctions imposed on Mugabe and his inner circle seven years ago.

By Zimonline