It’s been a long time since Zimbabwe had anything resembling a legitimate government. In January, Parliament held its last session before the March 29 Harmonised Election. That election came, and went, and we waited, and eventually the results were announced. Then we waiting a while longer, and 9 weeks over deadline, the presidential run-off one-man election was held. For once, things picked up the pace – the results of that one-person election were announced, and Mugabe’s coronation – oops, I mean inauguration – was held within 48 hours.

But now the President’s been sworn in, and at some point all of those basics like the swearing in of MPs and Senators, the election of the Speaker of the House and President of the Senate, and the opening of Parliament are meant to happen. But there’s no sign yet of any of those events on the horizon.

According to Zimbabwe’s Constitution, Parliament is meant to meet at least once every 180 days. Today marks the 180th day since Parliament last met. Over the past years, Zimbabwe’s government has mastered the art of stretching the Constitution to suit it, but this is taking things to a whole new level. But as Zimbabwe’s legislation trackers Veritas pointed out, “the consequences of non-compliance with the deadline are not spelled out in the Constitution.”

Of course they’re not. In most democratic countries the Constitution is the “supreme law of the land.” Non-compliance with the Constitution is anathema. You don’t need to spell out its consequences; it’s simply unheard of.

But, of course, Zimbabwe’s not a democracy any more. And why would any autocrat worry about a petty detail like a Constitutional deadline to reconvene Parliament when he’d already taken power by a quiet coup?

This entry was posted on July 15th, 2008 at 3:34 pm by Amanda Atwood and is filed under Elections 2008, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.