The Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) last week elected Liam Philp (pictured) as its new president, replacing Andrew Pascoe as farmers sought a new direction for the organisation.
CFU expected to elect the new leadership last year but abandoned the process after alleged breaches to its constitution in the lead-up to the congress, reported Zimbabwe Independent.
Pascoe was the CFU president when the group signed a US$3.5 billion compensation agreement with the government under the Global Compensation Deed in July 2020.
White farmers who lost their land under Zimbabwe’s controversial Fast-track Land Resettlement Programme were supposed to receive 50% of the compensation after a year and the balance within five years.
However, the Government has so far only made two token payments and introduced another framework called the Farmers Compensation Agreement (FCA), which provides for compensation through 10-year Treasury Bills (TBs).
The majority of farmers are said to be opposed to the arrangement and are joining the Southern African Agri Initiative (SAAI) which is lobbying for the rejection of the FCA.
Philp’s election came after CFU’s lawyers advised the group to hold fresh polls citing breaches of the CFU’s constitution in the run-up to the abortive elections last year.
In a paper dated December 7, 2023, Daniel Tivadar, the CFU’s legal counsel, said:
The president should have been elected immediately after the congress. This was not done. To this extent, the constitution was not observed.
Similarly, the Electoral College was intended to be more numerous than it currently is.
Irrespective of the above breaches, the CFU should elect (or re-elect) its president as soon as possible. This is because the annual election of the president is a key feature of the Constitution.
I recommend that the constitution be reviewed as a matter of urgency with a view of amending it at a congress if needed, to reflect the current realities of the CFU.
CFU represents mostly white large-scale commercial farmers, most of whom lost their land under the fast-track land reform programme at the turn of the millennium.
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