HARARE – Zimbabwe’s largest political pressure group, the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), said on Wednesday it was embarking on a parallel process to produce a draft constitution for the country after disagreeing with the government on who should lead the writing of the charter.

The NCA said it would work with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) and Zimbabwe National Students Union (ZINASU). The national labour and student movements are also opposed to the unity government of President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai leading the constitutional reform process.

“The NCA with the special support of ZCTU and ZINASU will convene the second people’s convention on Monday 27 July, 2009. Our agenda is to get a genuine process that will give our country a democratic constitution,” NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku told journalists in Harare.

“At the convention we will launch under the banner of ‘Take Charge’ and thereafter take it to all people in the country,” said Madhuku, adding that the convention will be attended by 3 500 likeminded Zimbabweans with the deep convictions that the constitution making process must not be led by politicians.

The NCA is a coalition of several civic society groups and smaller opposition political parties. The group has for years campaigned for a new and democratic constitution for Zimbabwe.

The group and its labour and student partners have been traditional allies of both Tsvangirai and Deputy Premier Arthur Mutambara’s MDC parties.

But a potentially costly rift has emerged between the allies after the former opposition MDC parties agreed with President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU PF party to put Parliament in charge of drafting a new constitution for Zimbabwe.

Without control of Parliament, the NCA will not be able to make its draft constitution into law. However, the NCA’s move could prove a devastating moral and political body blow on its former MDC allies should the government-drafted charter turn out to be defective or less democratic than the one produced by the civic coalition.

The NCA, ZCTU, ZINASU and the MDC – then a single party led by Tsvangirai – successfully mobilised Zimbabweans to reject a government-sponsored draft constitution in 2000.

The divisions in the alliance could weaken the MDC’s capacity to wring concessions from Mugabe and ZANU PF during the writing of the new constitution.

Mugabe has said any new constitution should be based on a draft constitution secretly authored by the MDC and ZANU PF on Lake Kariba and known as the Kariba Draft.

Critics say the document leaves largely untouched the wide-sweeping powers that Mugabe continues to enjoy even after formation of a power-sharing government with Tsvangirai and Mutambara.

Zimbabweans hope a new constitution will guarantee human rights, strengthen the role of Parliament and curtail the president's powers, as well as guaranteeing civil, political and media freedoms.

The new constitution will replace the current Lancaster House Constitution written in 1979 before independence from Britain. The charter has been amended 19 times since independence in 1980. Critics say the majority of the amendments have been to further entrench Mugabe and ZANU PF’s hold on power.

By Zimonline