94pc of MDC-T meetings approved this year: Chihuri

by MDC-T this year, contrary to claims by the party that they were being denied permission to conduct meetings.
A report by Police Commissioner-General Augustine Chihuri reveals that MDC-T has been allowed to conduct 644 out of 682 political meetings countrywide.
The report was compiled after a Special Cabinet meeting on March 24 in which MDC-T leader, Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, made unsubstantiated claims that the police were barring them from having meetings and rallies.
MDC-T has in recent weeks attempted to use allegations of political violence and the selective application of the law to try and defer general elections that will be held later this year to May 2012.
Mr Tsvangirai is accused of using these unproven claims to mislead Sadc leaders about the situation in Zimbabwe at a recent summit of the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security in Zambia.
The statistics in the report made available to this paper cover the period January 1 to March 25.
Comm-Gen Chihuri again challenged MDC-T to bring the so-called victims of political violence in his party to the police to allow investigations to take place.
The Public Order and Security Act requires political parties and other organisations to notify police of any intended gatherings of large groups of people.
“The MDC-T had 682 notifications, 644 (94 percent) of these were sanctioned. MDC-M/N had 31 notifications and 29 (94 percent) were sanctioned. Zanu-PF had 816 notifications and 788 (97 percent) were sanctioned.
“Other parties and organisations had 38 notifications and 37 (97 percent) were sanctioned,” said Comm-Gen Chihuri.
He said the few instances MDC-T notices were disapproved were when the party wanted to have meetings parallel to national events.
“Despite being in the inclusive Government, the MDC-T does not only ignore national events but even has the audacity to despise those events on the national calendar like the Heroes Day,” he said.
Comm-Gen Chihuri cited examples where the MDC-T wanted to hold parallel events this year that include a rally in Victoria Falls on the day China’s Vice Prime Minister Wang Qishan was scheduled to arrive in Zimbabwe.
The party also wanted to hold a rally at Glamis Arena on the same day national hero Cde David Karimanzira was being buried.
He said in 2008 MDC-T dragged the police to the courts during the burial of late national hero Brigadier-General Amoth Chingombe because they wanted to have a parallel meeting.
Comm-Gen Chihuri said the ZRP’s personnel numbered 33 000 and they were supposed to police 13 million people.
As such, he said, they had to be judicious in their deployments.
“If each individual was allowed to do as he/she pleased, holding parallel events to national events, no doubt the ZRP will fail in its mandate to maintain peace in the land.”
The police chief said it was wrong for MDC-T to think that the only political parties in the country were those in the GPA.
“There is a wrong and misleading notion by the MDC formations, particularly the MDC-T, in believing that the only political parties in Zimbabwe are those in the GPA.
“The MDC formations need to be reminded the following tacit truths, Zimbabwe has ever been and still remains a plural democracy, a position that has been maintained well before its formation in 1999.
‘The ZRP will not brook any spurious, vexatious and cheap propaganda stunt targeted at portraying the organisation as partisan,” he said.
Com-Gen Chihuri said the police were tired of the continued and unfounded vilification of its image and leadership.
“The ZRP does not make laws, but enforces the laws as they are given by the legislature.
“The duty of maintaining law and order in the country supercedes selfish individual interests,” he said.
Comm-Gen Chihuri said MDC-T “lacks maturity in its dealings”, including trying to schedule meetings at the last minute near those organised by other parties or by the State – something he said appeared designed to provoke political violence.
He also said some meetings had been turned down because MDC-T organised them after Mr Tsvangirai had tacitly incited people to replicate the chaos seen in North Africa in recent months and there was thus the possibility that the rallies were designed to foment violence.
“The ZRP continues to urge all the political parties to desist from behaving like warlords and causing pandemonium in society.
Mr Tsvangirai last week misrepresented to regional leaders that Zanu-PF and State security agents were unleashing violence against his party’s supporters.
This resulted in the Organ on Politics, Defence and Security issuing a communique in which they appeared to accept these allegations.
However, police statistics indicate that more MDC-T affiliated people have been arrested in connection with political violence than any other formation.