Zimbabwe’s new constitution looks set to include a clause limiting the term of office of the president, finance minister Tendai Biti has revealed.
“Certainly a provision limiting the terms of office will be there, and that’s a very critical provision,” Biti, who is secretary-general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), told Emerging Markets.
Negotiations on a proposed constitution have been fraught with difficulties, with the MDC pushing for the inclusion of the clause in its bid to prevent incumbent president Robert Mugabe of the Zanu-PF party clinging to office. Mugabe has held power in Zimbabwe since 1980.
Biti stressed the importance of ensuring the constitution included a limit on the term of office, suggesting that even if elections did not deliver a democratic result, this clause could impel politicians to leave office at the end of their tenure.
“Let’s not place our faith in individuals, individuals can betray us, individuals can sell us out.” he said. “Let’s place our faith in institutions, starting with a constitution crafted on the basis of trust, a constitution modeled on the assumption that no particular leaders can abuse it.
“The most important thing we’ve done in Africa over the years is to come up with limited terms of office – its working in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia and it’s the best thing we can ever do because in Africa it is easy to get re-elected, but at least if there’s a limitation to the [number of times] you can get reelected, it works wonders.”
He also confirmed the growing consensus that the new constitution should be in place by late this year or early 2012, and was likely to be followed by elections in late 2012 or 2013.
“I think we will have a new constitution in place towards the end of this year or early next year, and that it will be a much, much better constitution than the one we have,” he said
Zanu-PF had pressed for a new constitution to be finalized by the end of the year, but MDC officials had previously suggested it would be impossible to reach agreement before the end of 2011.
In thinly veiled comments aimed at President Mugabe, he said that while the prospect of elections could threaten to destabilize the country politically and economically, the challenge was to ensure that this did not happen in Zimbabwe again.
“We can fight [politically], but we must let the economy, the capacity of the people to go to work, go to school, go unaffected,” he said. “It’s important to learn from the past and protect people’s lives from political battles, put our faith in institutions and find a way to vaccinate the market against the bad guys of politics.”
Biti has been widely credited with rescuing the Zimbabwean economy from double-digit negative growth rates and multi-million percent inflation rates when he assumed office in 2009.
He said the revival of the economy was down to the defiance of the Zimbabwean people and diaspora in the face of a “dictator” and urged people to hold their resolve in the face of potential disruption.
“What it taught us is that when faced with a crisis, we can’t hide in our shell, we have to look the dictator in the eye and not blink. Since 2009, we have seen a massive revival, a massive return of capital but we can’t afford to blink.”