VARIOUS churches yesterday came together in the capital to launch the Christian vote campaign for 2018, where they vowed to take violent politicians head-on.
BY OBEY MANAYITI
Zimbabwe Council of Churches secretary-general, Kenneth Mtata said the campaign was meant to ensure that there would be no repeat of the previous violent elections.
“The church needs to reflect on what would be their responsibility, as we get to the elections in 2018. Our message is very simple: That we want to make sure that we do not have a repeat of what we have done or what we have seen in the past, where every election is marred by violence, properties destroyed and communities are fragmented,” he said.
“We are saying is it possible for us to have a civilised election, where people can air their different views and make their informed choices.”
Mtata said churches had since approached politicians from Zanu PF and MDC-T as part of preparing a conducive 2018 election environment.
“We have had meetings with political leaders and recently we had meetings with Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa and MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, so we have been meeting them. It’s their responsibility to take a lead in these elections,” he said.
“We are simply saying this is what we want, we want a different approach to the way we negotiate the nation-building process and we are saying it is not necessary to breed violence.”
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About 10 Christian organisations including the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace, Prayer Network of Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Pastors’ Fellowship, Christian Leaders Forum, Ecumenical Church Leaders’ Forum, Zimbabwe Christian Alliance and Zimbabwe Devine Destiny (ZDD) among others, participated.
At the meeting, Christian leaders, previously tortured during election periods, gave terrifying accounts of where they ended up fleeing their families or sustaining life-threatening injuries.
Speakers gave harrowing tales of church members and villagers being used to turn against each other in past violent elections.
ZDD leader, Bishop Ancelimo Magaya said churches would de-campaign violent candidates.
“The past elections have been violent and with such culture people fear participating in elections. We want people to overcome that fear and intimidation. We need to condemn violence in the strongest terms and we will also encourage our people to shun voting against violent candidates, those implicated in corruption and incompetent people,” he said, adding that they would soon go into rural areas with the same message.
Zimbabwe Christian Alliance representative, Useni Sibanda said there was need to mobilise people to register to vote and then encourage them to shun violence.
Another church denomination leader, Kudakwashe Makuwe, said violence should also be addressed at the decision-making level.
Heal Zimbabwe programmes manager Cleto Manjova said they would foster peace-building initiatives along with the Church.
Elections in Zimbabwe have been marred by violence and intimidation, resulting in the death and displacement of mainly opposition supporters.
