Zimbabwe's constitutional revision process hit another small bump Tuesday as a training session in Harare for outreach workers was disrupted by liberation war veterans singing revolutionary songs and demonstrating despite instructions from organizers not to engage in such displays of partisanship.
VOA Studio 7 correspondent Irwin Chifera reported from Harare that the 1970s war veterans also changed slogans of the former ruling ZANU-PF party of President Robert Mugabe, injecting an overtly political note.
But constitutional outreach worker Melissa Ndlovu of Bulawayo told VOA Studio 7 reporter Brenda Moyo that the process is going well.
Elsewhere, the Zimbabwe National Students Union or ZINASU has split into two factions, one backing the constitutional process led by a select parliamentary committee, the other opposing it.
The newly-elected ZINASU leadership headed by Joshua Chinyere said it will mobilize 300,000 students to take part in the process, with hundreds already recruited to urge students to contribute their views on the constitution.
ZINASU Spokesman Mfundo Mlilo told VOA Studio 7 reporter Gibbs Dube that the organization resolved last month in an annual congress to fully involve itself in in the constitution-making process to protect the right of Zimbabwean students to education, among other fundamental issues.
But a rival ZINASU formation led by former president Clever Bere said it does not support the current constitutional revision process.
The grouping's spokesman, Blessing Vava, contended that this position was adopted last year in cooperation with the National Constitution Assembly, which leads the opposition to the constitutional redrafting process, and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, the main trade union confederation.
