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Nobleman Runyanga-Correspondent
The opposition CCC interim secretary-general, Chalton Hwende has, of late, been very uncharacteristically excited about land.
Since April, he has been going around the countryside to mobilise the rural electorate to support his party ahead of next year’s harmonised general elections.
The trips must have awakened him to the value and beauty of land. He must have seen how he and fellow party members are missing out following the directive from the late MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai that participating in and benefiting from the land reform programme was a no-no and a lowly preserve of ZANU PF members.
In opposition lingo benefiting from the programme was regarded as “zvechiZANU.”
No MDC member would dare go against Tsvangirai’s orders although the late opposition leader was exposed by The Herald in March 2014 in a report which put it in the open that he was a leasing the Farai Mwazha-owned Gabbari Farm near Kwekwe where he kept cattle.
Although the land was the main reason why nationalists and the veterans of the liberation struggle took up arms to fight Britain and Ian Smith, Tsvangirai promised white former farmers that he would return their land if he attained State power.
Who would forget the former farmers lining up to write a smiling Tsvangirai fat cheques in front of global media cameras to financially capacitate him and his party to unseat ZANU PF?
For most of the following years the opposition fought from the corner of the West and the former farmers by criticising the land reform.
Twenty years later, with Tsvangirai out of the picture, some opposition members, including very senior ones like Hwende, are now seeing how the former trade unionist pulled wool over the eyes and discouraged them from applying for land while it was still available.
While the land reform programme had its fair share of challenges such as lack of adequate funding to enable beneficiaries to make full use of their pieces of land, over the years things have slowly turned around.
Many youths like the successful Mhondoro-based chicken farmer, Terence Maphosa have taken to the land with unprecedented gusto and many young opposition members are regretting joining a party which barred them from applying for land.
Many youths across the political divide are realising the value of having a piece of land. One cannot help, but notice Hwende’s subtle attempts to leverage the regret among opposition members and the hunger for land among the generality of youths win the over to his structureless party using social media.
In July the opposition politician in him incited the 28 urban local authorities, which are dominated by his party to “give young people urban land to build their houses.”
As if that was not enough, he incited youths in cities and towns to “occupy urban land,” citing that they could not afford to buy land.
The following month he sought to foment land lawlessness by inciting young people by asking to “list . . . farms occupied by people with over 200 hectares who are under-utilising the land. We want the youths to be given 1 million hectares to divide among 100 000 young people who are ready to make their 10 hectares productive. Nyika nevhu inhaka yatakasiirwa nemadzitateguru.”
The whole world knows that in July 2019 the Land Commission under the Ministry of Lands, Agriculture, Fisheries, Water and Rural Development embarked on the second phase of the land audit which sought to rationalise farm sizes among other issues.
The exercise was completed in 2020 and Government is currently working on the modalities of implementing the Commission’s recommendations and unlocking more land through farm re-sizing. The Ministry’s officials also visits farms to check on productivity, occupancy and land use every year.
Given this background, Hwende’s attempts to politicise the hunger for land among some youths can only be viewed as a mischievous, desperate and vain effort to benefit from the youth bulge ahead of next year’s elections using the land issue.
Unfortunately, most youth are politically awake and will not allow themselves to be used by a Western-sponsored opposition outfit which hates Zimbabweans and enjoys their sanctions-induced suffering.
Zimbabwean youths know that they cannot afford to buy urban land because of the sanctions which CCC interim vice president, Tendai Biti and interim treasurer, David Coltart actively participated in crafting.
Admittedly youths need land, but the only way that Zimbabweans can believe Hwende’s concern for them is when he breaks ranks with his party leader, Chamisa and publicly denounces the sanctions against Zimbabweans.
With sanctions out of the way, the country’s economy will turn around thereby enabling the young people of Zimbabwe to afford bank loans and mortgages to buy pieces of land and houses of their choice.
Following a rural mobilisation trip to Bindura North constituency on 20 August 2022, Hwende sought to endear his party to the rural and resettlement farmers by feigning concerns over the Grain Marketing Board (GMB) crop producer prices.
He tweeted that “we need to give them (farmers) more support in agriculture more inputs and fair commodity prices when they harvest. The Grain Marketing Board (GMB) model is exploitative, extractive in nature and must be abandoned.”
The attempt at sounding pro-farmer by a Western-supported opposition party official evidently and obviously rang hollow and sounded false.
That is the danger of stupidly thinking that one can walk into a new political territory and convince its inhabitants to support a “cause” which is alien to and against them.
The decades-old political chemistry between ZANU PF and Government on one side, and the people on the other cannot be undone by an opposition party official just because he has attempted to win them by touching on their anxieties and concerns.
Hwende’s CCC will never rule Zimbabwe, so one wonders on what basis he was promising a better agro-produce trading system than the one being run by the GMB.
Hwende’s party in its various previous factions and formations has failed to run the 28 urban areas under its purview for the last 22 years.
It has superintended over the dilapidation of the country’s once very beautiful cities and towns into grotesque-looking dirty spaces which are bereft of basic services such as refuse removal and clean drinking water.
Chamisa is failing to run the political party which he claims to have formed in January this year. It has neither leadership structures, a constitution nor a bank account.
Can people with such a chequered track record run a country? Can they replace and fund an alternative agro-produce trading system to the one being run by the GMB?
As Hwende goes around the country’s districts and provinces making promises which are way above their political capabilities, the people should ask very serious questions and demand answers from them.
The people should ask how CCC is expecting to be voted by the people whom it condemned to a life of suffering through inviting sanctions.
Hwende and company should tell the people how they intend to provide support to farmers who are operating under the land reform programme, which their party does not agree with.
The people should demand that CCC actively and publicly pushes for the removal of sanctions if it wishes to benefit electorally from the beneficiaries of a programme for which the whole country was punished by the West.
The party cannot have its cake and eat it too. If the party thinks that the land reform is now good as Hwende is trying to tell the world, it should convince its handlers that sanctions are bad and should be removed like yesterday.
The Zimbabwean electorate should refuse to have wool pulled over their eyes by CCC the same way that opposition members were tricked by Tsvangirai over the land reform programme.
For as long as the opposition outfit supports sanctions, it should be denied the votes of those who believe in the programme.
In any case, the party does not have any solutions for its internal problems, so the electorate should not be hoodwinked into voting for it on the basis of promises which it does not have any authority and capacity to deliver.
Online Reporter