Democratic Representation: Advocating for Expatriate MPs for Zimbabwe.
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(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...By Sanderson N Makombe
Published: December 7, 2009
By Sanderson N Makombe.
Zimbabwe is currently in the process of writing a new constitution. One of the major challenges lies in recognising the rights of the Zimbabwean community living abroad. Currently Zimbabweans abroad are not allowed to vote in any election in Zimbabwe despite the fact that a great number are still on the voter’s roll. Only members of the armed forces are exempted, therefore eligible. The unfortunate outcome is that, of the 210 Parliamentarians and 93 Senators in Zimbabwe, none represents the interests of Zimbabweans abroad. Those Diasporas eager to make it have had to relocate back to Zimbabwe and stand in constituency elections to be elected. A case in point is the late Honourable John Nyamande of MDC-T who was settled in UK together with his family but had to stand in the constituency of Rusape Central.
It is settled fact that Zimbabwe has witnessed massive emigration in the past decade due to the economic and political instability characterising this aforesaid period and still prevailing. Most of those who have emigrated belong to the active working age group. As a result, massive brain drain has seen our highly skilled manpower seeking refuge and greener pastures in far lands. No doubt therefore, that Zimbabwe has lost a clique of some of our brightest citizens.
The majority of the Diaspora has maintained their intimate links with Zimbabwe. Most do confess that they will jump at the earliest opportunity to go back when the situation substantially improves both politically and economically. A good number have established business in various sectors of the economy, whereas the majority still send thousands of money to beloved ones every week.
There is compelling need for this constituency to be tapped in more and utilise their expertise in various fields. Most Diasporas advocate for their right to vote in elections in Zimbabwe. This is noble and the new constitution must recognise this. However just being allowed to vote is not good enough. What is required is a more advanced mechanism that allows the Diaspora to have an established voice at the highest level in Zimbabwe and in their host countries. Voting for an MP is Rusape will never advance interests of the Diasporas. In addition to being allowed to vote, the notion of expatriate MPs can be developed to give a permanace in terms of representation.
It is a fact that most Zimbabweans who have emigrated are settled in South Africa, Botswana, the UK, the USA, and Australia. The exact numbers are not known. However it is estimated that about 3 million Zimbabweans are living outside the country. These countries could be designated as constituencies for the purpose of elections. Political parties and individuals would be allowed to participate in elections and be voted as an MP .Of course these demographic regions are not uniform, which makes the first past the post and constituency based voting difficult. The best solution would be to elect using proportional representation. For example the UK could be allocated 5 parliamentary seats. Zimbabweans in the UK would vote for their party of choice and seats would be allocated to the parties according to the number of overall votes gained. Then the respective party would hold internal elections based on their own criteria to elect individuals who would seat then in parliament. The current system used by the EU for election of MEPs [Members of the European Parliament] could be a good starting point.
The expatriate MP would be just like a resident MP. Same rights, duties and responsibilities. The only difference is that they would be serving an overseas Zimbabwean constituency. It is highly improbable that they will be able to sit all sessions of parliament but concessions could be made on the number of session they would be required to seat in each parliamentary session. The main reason being the proximity of some of the regions to Zimbabwe and the cost associated with the travelling.
The idea of having expatriate MPs is not without foundation, though it is still evolving. France through the efforts of Presidency of Sakorzy has amended the constitution to provide for eleven expatriate MPs for the 2011 elections. It will be the first time that expatriate French would have the opportunity to choose their own MPs to represent them in the French Lower House. The regions designated as constituencies include Switzerland, UK, German, and Spain, Iberian Peninsula and Monaco, Eastern Europe, the Asia-Pacific region, Latin America, the Middle East and two in Africa.
Portugal allows expatriates to vote by post for MPs in two “emigration constituencies” (“Europe” and “outside Europe”) , electing a total of four of the 230 members of parliament. A government proposal in 1980 sought to increase the number of emigration constituencies to three (Portuguese-speaking countries, Europe, rest of the world), each with three MPs, but was not debated in parliament. It was revived recently and has substantial backing within the Council of Portuguese Communities.
In Croatia twelve parliamentary seats have been reserved since 1995 for expatriates’ representatives, who are elected proportionally from specific lists for a four-year term. The number of representatives may increase in the near future.
In Ireland too, a constitutional amendment has been proposed, providing for the election of three members to the Senate (Seanad Eireann) by Irish emigrants. These would replace three of the eleven members currently nominated by the Prime Minister, leaving the present total of 60 members unchanged. However, this amendment has not yet been approved, a necessary first step before it goes to referendum.
However there are surmountable challenges if this idea is to become reality. Firstly, there is a very large number of the Zimbabwean expatriate community that is undocumented or have false documents. In the UK there are lots of Zimbabweans who have all types of passports, ranging from Malawian to Portuguese, some have none all, neither do they have national ID cards. These categories might not feel secure to be involved because of the fear of being found out mainly by the immigration authorities. In addition there are thousands who have sought asylum and haven’t their cases finalised. Their documents will be in the hands of the immigration authorities. This pauses the first great huddle, of confirming and verifying the exact number of Zimbabweans abroad in certain countries and determining their eligibility to vote or participate in the electoral process.
Secondly the issue of who would be tasked with the mandate to verify and register these citizens has to be addressed. This process is necessary to come up with a voter’s roll, which will also determine the number of seats to be allocated to individual geographic locations. If the reform process in Zimbabwe had moved with speed and we had an impartial embassy staff, they would have been the ideal persons and institution to deal with this problem. However the present institutions are still heavily skewed towards ZANU PF that most citizens would not trust them to come up with a credible document.
Then there is the issue of those who have acquired foreign citizenship. Currently Zimbabwean law forbids dual citizenship. This law was promulgated mainly to segment a certain electoral constituency which ZANU PF felt would have voted for the MDC.At its height, there were more than 750 000 farm workers in Zimbabwe and more than 20 000 white farmers. Trends in the 2000 referendum show they were more likely to vote for MDC than ZANU PF.A good number of these, and those who have attained new status in their current host countries have not gone through the process of renunciating one of the citizenship they hold which the law requires. It is hoped however that dual citizenship will be returned in the new constitution thereby allowing them to participate in future elections.
In addition, Zimbabwean communities abroad are not well known for being very organised themselves. Whereas there is a plethora of organisations that represent certain Zimbabwean interests, we lack unifying bodies that would make policy lobbying coherent and consistent. There are hundreds of Zimbabwean lawyers in UK, yet there is no organisation that represents them. The same with teachers, doctors, nurses, engineers etc.
Alternatively parliament could reserve a couple of seats for the Diaspora. Instead of holding election, an all-party parliamentary committee would be tasked with appointing Zimbabweans abroad as expatriate MPs. This would require that organised groups outside and individual Zimbabweans would forward names [or theirs] of their suggested individuals. The committee would select individuals whom it considers have specific skills that would be beneficial to the country and would possess requisite qualities to represent overseas population on wide range of issues. This probably was the essence behind non-constituency MPs [the difference being they were local], though Mugabe abused it by appointing his cronies.
The current parliament, to my opinion is relatively large for a country like Zimbabwe. I believe it would not be necessary to enlarge or increase the number of MPs.Rather certain constituencies could be amalgamated reducing the number of seats to around 190.The remaining seats will be set aside then for this very important body mass residing outside Zimbabwe.