ZIMBABWE, and the world at large, is currently abuzz over the country’s planned general elections later this year.
What is triggering the spirited chattering among the country’s citizens and nationals of the global family is the violence that has characterised the pre-election period so far whereby some people have been harassed, beaten up and literally threatened with death since early last year.
Many Zimbabweans are really worried about what the future holds for the nation this coming election if, some six months or so away from the polls, some people — mainly the opposition — are being violently attacked for simply choosing to challenge the ruling Zanu PF party in the forthcoming elections.
The Church has impassionedly joined the chatter appealing to Zimbabweans to respect the sanctity of life and treat each other as family.
While the ruling party’s voice is almost turning hoarse denying any links to the violence, some of us honestly believe that the buck stops with it to bring sanity on the electoral playing field.
Why do we strongly express this view?
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The public domain is awash with incidence of people purporting or believed to be Zanu PF members who have incited violence, perpetrated violence and even gone to the extent of publicly calling for the death of the main opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) leader Nelson Chamisa and his family.
If all the people involved in all these obviously tarnishing and bad behaviours do not belong to Zanu PF — and even if they actually did — why are they not being arrested? Why is Zanu PF not even batting an eye over its name being dragged into the mud? Why is it not interested that those involved in violence are made to answer to their obvious sins?
All this makes some of us quite curious, especially given that Zanu PF — as the governing party — has immense influence over all arms of government, including the police.
On the recent violence in Murehwa, the party strongly denied any involvement in the attack of some elderly CCC members, yet we now hear that someone said to be a Zanu PF member and war veteran has been picked up for questioning by police.
Of course his arrest does not necessarily mean that he was involved in the violent attack of those unfortunate villagers, but incidents linking Zanu PF to such nefarious characters should get the party really worried if at all it cares about its image and reputation.
These incidents should deeply concern the President himself because for quite some time now he has been passionately preaching tolerance and peace ahead of the elections. And when some miscreants continue to cause mayhem in the name of campaigning for him, should he not jump into action?
That there exists many people out there who are busy bashing people’s heads to force them to vote for him, should make him lose sleep at night because there is no worse decampaigning than this. It should worry him attending a campaign rally where he will be surrounded by hundreds of people whose heads have been clobbered in to force them to attend. Frankly, he will be like a very fat sheep in a den of hungry wolves. He should be telling his avid supporters that bashing people to force them to support him and his party is archaic, unconstitutional, inhuman and unsustainable.
When he was elected, he was chosen to represent all Zimbabweans and we believe he should promote love and tolerance among Zimbabweans, starting in his own party, in line with proven international best practice.
This persistent violence will forever continue to divide us as a nation, blighting all our efforts to be a prosperous and progressive people. It is high time our politics matured.