***Zimbabwe's national election in June sharply altered the country's political landscape. Nowhere is this change more noticeable than in the country's Parliament where a strong opposition is demanding accountability. It has literally become the talk of the town ***

FOR the first time President Robert Mugabe is under strong attack from inside Parliament.

Also for the first lime the opposition walked out en masse last week, protesting against the government's supplementary budget of ZS35 billion.

Zimbabwe s Parliament has transformed dramatically from one in which snoozing old men came to life only to approve government legislation, into an active if sometimes vociferous debating chamber.

The catalyst was the national elections on 24-25 June which saw a significant change in the country s monochromatic political scene dominated by President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu-PF party.

Before the controversial June elections, which were preceded by widespread campaign violence and invasion of white-owned farms, the 150-member Parliament had an overwhelming Zanu-PF presence the party held 117 of the 120 elected seats.

In contrast, the ruling party with only 62 seats in the current Parliament is tailed by the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) with 57 seats. The remaining seat went to Zanu-Ndonga.

The showing of the MDC has created a hitherto unknown role in the legislature that of a shadow government.

Now. for the first time since Independence in 1980, parlia-

into such brisk exchanges between the ruling party and the opposition that most newspaper readers here turn to the parliamentary columns before anything else.

Even the usually dull and dreary Hansard, the verbatim parliamentary report, which in the past was circulated among business, academic and similar circles, is winning fresh readers. Such is Hansard's current popularity that Parliament now hopes to have it translated from English into Zimbabwe s local languages.

And. despite the sharp differences that separate government and opposition, they have united over one issue to agree to the live coverage of parliamentary debates on national television.

The MDC’s David Coltart. who proposed the idea, thought it would improve parliamentary attendance and active participation.

It is a great help to have sc many ministers... The lights ol the television cameras have attracted them to this Chamber,' said Coltart tartly when television cameras appeared in the Chamber during Ministers Question Time.

Zanu-PF MP. Charles Ndhlovu hoped the new move would leac to nationwide discussion ol issues raised In the House.

The motion is calling on Par liament to transform Itself into z true people's Parliament." h< said.

"Colleagues on the other side are on their best behaviour. 1 have never seen members from the other side behave as gentlemanly and lady-like as this afternoon," the Leader of the House. Patrick Chinamasa, commented wryly as television coverage gripped the nation.

But all this has not constrained youthful MDC MPs from launching blistering verbal attacks on President Robert Mugabe, accusing him of being the country's biggest problem.

Recently, the MDC’s Priscilla Mlsihairambwi-Mushonga told Parliament that Zimbabwe was "not short of brains" to solve its problems, but that Mugabe never listened to other people.

The problem is that he is actually the source of the problems we have in this country." She said that some Zanu-PF MPs agreed with her, but not surprisingly they did not want to say so to his face.

The end-of-September MDC walkout was prompted by the government s refusal to grant more time for the debate on the supplementary budget. When it was hurriedly voted on. the opposition MPs broke out singing "Zanu yaora baba" (Zanu-PF is rotten) and trooped out.

The two parties have also

clashed on the Land Resettlement Programme. MDC members claim the exercise is haphazard and is forcing millions of landless peasants and farm workers into abject poverty.

Not surprisingly, the issue of pre-election violence has featured prominently in debates, with emotions running high among MDC MPs whose supporters were the main victims of the Zanu-PF terror.

Several MDC MPs were themselves terrorised by Zanu-PF youths. Some had their properties destroyed and their relatives beaten up or killed. Blessing Chebundo of the MDC asked the Speaker to lead Parliament in prayer because God had saved him from being murdered by political opponents.

Unprecedented opposition pressure in Parliament has also led to rare government accountability. Ever since Zimbabwe’s military intervention in the war in the democratic Republic of Congo, the Mugabe government has been secretive about its human and financial cost.

But under persistent opposition questioning, the Minister for Finance has had to come out with figures ZS10 billion a year and

about 11.000 men. figures that analysts nonetheless dispute. The minister admitted the country's ailing economy should not shoulder such massive war expenditure.

Zimbabwe's Involvement in the Congo war does not have the support of all Zanu-FP MPs; nor does the exercise in land resettlement.

Political heavyweights such as Eddison Zvobgo, former justice minister and now a Zanu-PF backbencher, were applauded by the opposition for their criticism of the government.

"We have behaved, over the past few years as if the world owes us a living. It does not. We have blamed other people for each and every ill that befell us. It Is only us who are right and everybody else is wrong." Zvobgo told Parliament.

In what seemed like an exer-

cise in self-criUcism, the former minister went further.

"We have evidenced an Insatiable appetite to spend money we do not have, as if the budget was some wicked imperialist invention designed to terrorise developing nations. We have allowed confidence in our legal and constitutional system to slide. We have spoken about the need to create an enabling or inviting environment in which foreign and domestic investment can flow and flourish but have taken stern measures to ensure that does not happen."

Turning to Members of Parliament on his side of the House, Zvobgo said: We have tainted what was a glorious revoluUon, reduced it into some agrarian racist enterprise" words that would hardly have been heard in the previous legislature.

But his call for unity tn the house did not find much favour as MPs continued to taunt, insult and jeer each other.

The presence of feisty women is a new attraction. On one occasion, war veterans' leader and Zanu-PF MP, Chenjeral Hunzvi, shouted at an MDC member "Tlnokurongera jambanja", which literally means ’We will organise violence against vou.“

The MDC MP Hilda Mafudze, who had the floor, shouted back. "Ndinokurova" (I will beat you up). Another MDC woman MP. Priscilla Mlsihairambwi-Mushonga jumped to her feet and

invited Hunzvi to step outside Parliament where, she promised, she would sort him out.

The war veteran did not oblige. Still the exchange illustrates how a once-docile Parliament has suddenly come alive. Clearly, the Zimbabwean Parliament will never be the same again.

- GEMINI NEWS

The author is the Founder Editor of Ziana Community Newspapers Group' and former Managing Director of The Daily News. ’ Zimbabwe's first independent daily.