World Parliamentarians meet to discuss Zimbabwe's Jacob Mudenda case

Members of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) convened a zoom meeting to discuss a matter regarding the conduct of Speaker Parliament Advocate Jacob Mudenda.

Journalist Simba Chikanza who has been following the IPU case regarding Mudenda posted on Twitter saying, "On Monday morning the union of all parliaments in the world is meeting in Geneva over Mudenda and ED. Don't be surprised to see Zimbabwe banned from the IPU soon, and someone blaming it all on sanctions!"

In 2019 the Nelson Chamisa led  MDC dragged Mudenda to IPU over his decision to dock the opposition party MPs' allowances for five months.

The matter was regarding an event when the MDC legislators walked out of Parliament before President Emmerson Mnangagwa delivered his State of the Nation address and, as punishment, Mudenda announced that they would lose their allowances for five months.

Said MDC in a letter that was written to IPU, "One of the challenges that our party and the nation at large have suffered in the last 39 years has been the crisis of legitimacy and party-government-State conflation.

"This has resulted in compromising the functionality of key national institutions such as the Judiciary and Parliament. This formal complaint is informed as a result of what our party feels is a deliberate partisan implementation of Standing Rules and Orders of Parliament by the Speaker of Parliament.

"Our decision not to stand up and eventually walk out of Parliament during the opening of Parliament and State of the Nation Address, was our democratic right to express our long standing position that the July 30, 2018 presidential elections were stolen, hence any beneficiary of that fraud ceases to be legitimate in our view.

"To our shock and even with the understanding that the Speaker has the powers to call to order any Member of Parliament, was the harshness of his punishment of our Members of Parliament, which has made us to reach out to your office.

 "We have decided to make this complaint because your institution is motivated amongst many other things, to create strong parliaments, uphold human rights and peace building, of which as a party we feel that our Speaker of Parliament and our Parliament in general have been heavily compromised."

The Inter-Parliamentary Union is a global inter-parliamentary institution established in 1889 by Frédéric Passy and William Randal Cremer. It was the first permanent forum for political multilateral negotiations.

Its role is to promote democratic governance, institutions and values, working with parliaments and parliamentarians to articulate and respond to the needs and aspirations of the people.