Harare - A coalition of human rights groups in Zimbabwe has vowed on Wednesday to campaign against a new constitution, which is being drafted by the power-sharing government as part of the deal between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.

The group called the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), made up of churches, workers groups, students and other activists, said it was hopeful that it could win a referendum set for next year.

"We are going to start a campaign of opposing this process. We will obviously be holding demonstrations. The NCA will campaign for a No vote, because any document that comes from a defective process is defective," Lovemore Madhuku, the NCA chairman, told journalists in the capital, Harare.

The move comes after Zimbabwe's Parliamentary Speaker Lovemore Moyo announced on Sunday the creation of a 25-member committee to ensure the constitutional reforms in Zimbabwe.

The committee is made up of legislators from both Zanu-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) who in February finally joined a coalition government with Mugabe.

Under the terms of the deal Mugabe retained his presidency while his long-time foe Tsvangirai became prime minster.

A draft constitution is supposed to be subjected to a referendum within 18 months of the coalition government.

Madhuku's NCA in 2000 successfully campaigned against a draft constitution which had been sponsored by the government. Back then Tsvangirai was not part of the government and his MDC backed the campaign.

"Unless we are denied access to the media and they do not grant our meetings and disrupt them, we will again win the referendum," said Madhuku.(dpa)