Chronicle Editor
Wallace Musakanyi
FREE, fair and credible elections are the lifeblood of a full-fledged democratic political system and they also serve as a pivotal mechanism that promotes civil and liberal values as far as governance issues are concerned.
Zimbabwe in the same context will hold by-elections on March 26, 2022 to replace 28 Members of Parliament and 105 councillors whose seats fell vacant through deaths, reassignments as well as recalls by their respective parties.
The day is worth celebrating as it marks the rejuvenation of democracy and the broader participation of the general citizens in the governance process after a long struggle.
Indeed, the struggle for representation, policy and law making which involves conducting of elections whenever there are vacant seats as a result of the aforementioned reasons was halted by the Covid-19 pandemic which prohibited public gatherings as part of a broader strategy to mitigate the disease.
In the same context, the voter registration exercise which is being headed by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has also been going on smoothly with more first-time voters having managed to register to vote coupled with profound and intense voter mobilisation and education exercise which the Commission has also been undertaking nationally.
The Commission has managed to register more than 25 000 new voters ahead of the by-elections while the voters’ roll has also been cleansed by removing the deceased’s names from the voters’ roll.
Ahead of the by-elections, it seems as if neo-liberal fanatics and their sponsored civil society organisations have also been at work, real work to say, they have rebranded and strategised to take the political fight higher, the aim being to win Local Government and Parliamentary seats not only by launching a spirited attack against their political opponents but against Zec as well.
This has been notable within the confines of vectors of information disorder which has manifested through misinformation which expresses fake news doctored to validate a specific politically constructed agenda that has no relationship with reality.
All sorts of allegations have been raised against Zec as part of the bigger strategy to soil and discredit the Commission in order influence the outcome of the March 26 by-elections in their favour.
March 26 is also another golden time for the electorate to take a thorough political stock take of the developmental trajectory of their respective constituencies, to assess the levels and magnitude of development that has been done by the leaders from their distinct political parties.
The urbanites must be extra vigilant as we are also drawing towards the by-elections, as they have fallen prey to egocentric, self-centred as well as misleading leaders hailing from the opposition political outfits for a very long time.
Instead of being the pioneers of development they have been the main actors of the governance crisis in the urban areas which has openly manifested through poor service delivery, a devastating increase of land barons, water crisis, the list is endless.
March 26 is therefore the big day to amplify the political tug of war between the development wired patriotic political players versus the lazy and incompetent neo-colonial agents.
It is only the electorate that can separate the grain from the chaff by voting for the agents of development also taking cognisant of the depressing implications of the factional fights of opposition political players on the effective operation of the Parliament as well as the local authorities.
Lest we forget that the majority of the seats that are vacant in both the local councils and the Parliament were as a result of ego-driven power political wrestle mania between Douglas Mwonzora of MDC-A and Nelson Chamisa of the newly formed CCC which resulted in the recalling of many MPs and councillors.
It is actually worrisome for politicians to use an important institution like the Parliament as their fighting ground ahead of many laws that needs to be aligned to the Constitution. These petty fights have eroded the state machinery and the effective functioning of this law-making facility.
With all these aspects at hand, and the by-elections being a stone’s throw away, it is imperative for the electorate to take a well-grounded and informed decision detached from emotions when it comes to participating in elections.
A thorough post-mortem of a political party’s competence to deliver must also be critically done so as to vote for the rightful candidates.
As far as developmental issues are concerned, it would be unfair not to applaud the efforts that have been done by the Zanu-PF led Government thus far.
Massive infrastructural projects (roads, hospitals, bridges) have been rolled out nationally, regularisation of stands to thwart the growing numbers of land barons is also work in progress, whilst macro-economic stability and on the international scene, the re-engagement and engagement exercise is also deepening whilst bi-lateral relations with fellow African countries like Kenya and Botswana, among others have also been cemented as they also translate into invaluable economic significance.
These are some of the significant pull factors that lure voters as some political players are participating in the political field for commercial purposes (to amass wealth from their donors and supporters) whilst others merely oppose for the sake of opposing with no clear-cut plan and ideology.
The electorate are and will always be the biggest shareholders of the republic hence they must pragmatically participate in the electoral process with the desire to be part of the developmental mechanism rather than to be cheerleaders of factional politicians whose fights also cripple development and progress.
As such, they must vote wisely in the upcoming by-elections.
Wallace Musakanyi is a writer and researcher who can be contacted on [email protected]
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