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MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai was the first to publicly call for a negotiated constitution when he addressed a public accountability workshop on Monday last week in Harare.
Last night the party’s spokesperson, Mr Nelson Chamisa, defended his leader’s position saying the outreach programme had failed to pass the legitimacy test.
MDC secretary-general Professor Welshman Ncube echoed the same position saying the Kariba Draft should be used as the basis for the final constitution.
Said Mr Chamisa: “Our position as MDC is that the Copac outreach has failed to pass the credibility and legitimacy test and to be a people driven constitution.
“Therefore, relying on this material is a misnomer and misbegotten. The process was done Nicodemously and the environment was not conducive as it was marred by intimidation, cohesion and fear,” he said.

Mr Chamisa said parties in the inclusive Government have to agree first that the process had failed to pass the test and then settle for a negotiated position.
Prof Ncube said: “We are back to square one because we now have three positions on the table. Literally this means that we have to renegotiate to try and reconcile the views of our people.
“As MDC, we still prefer that the Kariba Draft is the easiest point to start from and see areas of variance between the parties,” he said.

When asked why the inclusive Government wasted resources on the outreach programme, Prof Ncube, who is also the MDC negotiator to the inter-party dialogue said:
“Our original position was that the Kariba Draft should be used as basis for consulting the public but the MDC-T repudiated this.
“For some reasons best known to themselves, some parties thought that they owned the people yet common sense can tell you that the moment you approach the public, they will reflect on positions of parties they belong to.”

On the contrary, Cde Patrick Chinamasa, who is the Zanu-PF negotiator to the inter-party dialogue, yesterday dismissed the positions of the MDC formations arguing his party was still committed to a people-driven constitution.
“Zanu-PF is nowhere near that decision and I have no doubt in my mind that we must remain committed to what we agreed, that is, we should have a people-driven constitution.
“We committed ourselves to a people-driven constitution and as parties in the inclusive Government we set up outreach teams each of which was headed by three co-chairpersons from parties.

“We further agreed on the format how public views were to be sorted and each meeting was video photographed. At the end of every meeting, the three co-chairpersons and rapporteurs then agreed on what people said and as a result 4 529 meetings were conducted countrywide.
“We have documents signed by the three co-chairpersons on each of those meetings reflecting that they were conducted in a peaceful environment,” he said.
Cde Chinamasa said the views of the public in this regard should be respected if the country was to come up with a people-driven constitution.
“The outcome of this outreach must be true and faithful to what people said. To tamper with what people said will be a mockery of the whole process and will not be acceptable to Zanu-PF.

“Let us see first what people said and then see which party is saying the views of the people don’t matter and then let them pronounce themselves,” he said.

Political analyst Professor Jonathan Moyo yesterday said there was nothing new about the flip-flopping by the MDC formations.
“What they say depends on the weather or voice of their Western masters. They are politically dishonest by their very nature and the outreach programme has exposed them.
“They were caught with their political pants down because people have expressed views synonymous with the Zanu-PF position,” he said.
Prof Moyo said the MDC formations have no fundamental political and ideological values and that was the reason why they kept on shifting positions.