REMARKS by the Chief’s Council president Fortune Charumbira over the weekend urging Zimbabweans to shun violence ahead of the 2023 polls are a welcome development if they are genuine.
Traditional leaders, Charumbira in particular, have in the past been known as Zanu PF pseudo commissars and it’s quite refreshing to hear him denouncing political violence and calling on citizens to live in peace despite political differences.
Charumbira declared that violence had no place in a democratic society such as Zimbabwe, adding that political parties come and go but people’s relationships remain forever.
Indeed, these wise words from Charumbira cannot go unnoticed considering that he has a pending court case for openly campaigning for the ruling Zanu PF party in the run-up to the 2018 elections, violating the Constitution which forbids traditional leaders from taking part in partisan politics.
In the 2008 general elections, chiefs assisted Zanu PF functionaries to descend heavily on opposition supporters. Some of the chiefs went a step further and expelled their defiant subjects from their areas of jurisdiction for supporting opposition parties.
Violence has left an indelible scar on the country’s political landscape since independence in 1980. From the Gukurahundi disturbances that left an estimated 20 000 civilians dead to the 2008 bloody presidential runoff that left over 300 dead, and thousands nursing injuries during State-sponsored torture, the footprints of chiefs cannot be overlooked.
Chiefs have openly campaigned for Zanu PF, they have allowed violence on opposition members and have aided political polarisation in communities.
After being pampered with cars by the Zanu PF government, the traditional leaders commandeered people to support the ruling party, sometimes ordering them to vote in clusters to make sure they vote for the ruling party, violating people’s right to a secret ballot.
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We hope the remarks by Charumbira are genuine and represent a sea of change from the violence that has dogged our politics since the colonial era.
It is such calls that, perhaps, could bring an end to the culture of violence that has gripped the nation, aided by the traditional leaders who should be custodians of peace and unity in the country, all for the love of trinkets from the ruling party.
