Let’s grow, shun political violence

power on the back of violence. It is very simple that, any party that promotes violence will never achieve any economic development for the very people it wants to govern. No one will be naïve to think that all political rivalry can produce a smooth sailing election of a kiss on both cheeks relationship.
Harsh and insulting campaigns are staged everywhere in the world. It is the nature of politics. In some countries, those vying to be elected at district, town, city or national level, take to the campaign trail with their families and friends and volunteers.

Here in Zimbabwe, we hardly see candidates parading their families at campaign rallies or on door to door canvassing for votes.
What is of concern is the culture of hiring unemployed youths, some of them drunk to mobilise people to attend rallies. This system of uneducated youths trying to sell a political programme on behalf of a candidate is one that breeds violence.
All they get from the campaign is free beer and food.

In this environment of unemployment, what message can a candidate try to sell to the people who are hard pressed to get just one US dollar to buy food?
It is taking almost two years to write a simple constitution when Egypt took only two weeks to write their new constitution that was approved by about 98 percent of the electorate in a referendum. Why should our constitution take that long?

Why should we bicker on such a framework of how we want to be governed? This procrastination in coming up with the values we want for our country is what begets violence.
Many saw the impatience of the people when Parliament staged hearings on a bill recently. The emotions of the people are running high.
While the people are waiting patiently for the politicians to come up with this new constitution, there are reports that MPs are clamouring for new cars. Surely, people are depending on food handouts in their constituencies. For how long are people going to be patient?

Sometimes the electorate is promoting division in the country especially when one party dominates the cities and towns and another dominates the farming and rural areas.
This is not good at all. All parties must at least share the vote and elect MPs from various parties in all areas of the country if any credible economic development can take place.
Ideas for economic development cannot just come from one area of the country dominated by a particular party or vice versa. The country needs MPs from various parties in both the cities and rural areas.

At the moment one party was overwhelmingly elected in the cities and towns while another did the same in the rural areas. When it comes to economic development neither party’s ideas made any impact in economic development in the cities or the rural areas.
But if the electorate had chosen MPs from all parties in both the rural areas and cities, these MPs would be forced to cooperate to spearhead the wishes of all the people. The tendency to use the urban or the rural vote to gain power for one party will never work in the long run.

This division has been made worse by the system of first past the post or the winner takes all, which is a creation of the British. If the country is to address the culture of violence in our political system, it has to come up with a constitution that does not promote hatred in order to achieve power.
One top politician bemoaned the fact that there was no desire to debate the issues at all but that the politics was like a poisoned chalice because the only debate was that of regime change. This way of thinking that the only thing that matters in today’s politics is regime change does not promote dialogue.

It is sad indeed that political leaders cannot rise above the politics of hatred at the expense of real debate about the welfare of the people. All over the world, people have taken to the streets to protest against job losses and austerity economic policies.
It is no longer the politics of elections because that does not create jobs nor put food on the table. In some developed countries, people are staying away from voting because they think it is a waste of time.

Whether they vote for whatever party they still remain unemployed and cannot feed their families.
It is estimated that only about less than 40 percent of the registered voters bother to go to the polls. The belief is that politicians are all the same no matter what party they belong to.

Should people from different parties engage in violence to elect those, who after the elections, will drink and eat together? There is no harm in belonging to different parties, but it is the violence that all political leaders have been campaigning against.
Why not join hands and go quietly to the polls to cast our votes? Later after the voting, why not join each other to develop the country as one people?

Our leaders will be drinking and dining together after the elections despite the fact that they belong to different parties. Let us grow up and shun violence in pursuit of political power.