adminsupporters during the official opening of the Fourth Session of the Seventh Parliament on Tuesday.
The irony couldn’t have been more stark given that the party supporters were at each other’s throats as the leadership of their political parties and representatives in Parliament walked side by side into the august house with camaraderie and enviable familiarity to receive the legislative agenda.
What is more, as we showed in our front-page picture combo yesterday that had President Mugabe joking with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai juxtaposed with the running battles, the party leaders get along without incident yet their grassroots structures bash and maim each other.
And to us, this shows failure of leadership somewhere, somehow as some party leaders get carried away at rallies where they end up preaching the gospel of violence like what Mr Tsvangirai did at his party’s rally at Kadoma’s Rimuka Stadium recently, where he urged supporters to mobilise and use violence against political rivals.
What we expect from our leaders is leadership not puerile posturing and grandstanding.
We challenge the MDC party leaders, Mr Tsvangirai and Professor Mutambara, to take up President Mugabe’s gospel of peace and preach it to their supporters, many of whom have been implicated in acts of violence throughout the country.
President Mugabe is on record calling on fellow principals to the Global Political Agreement to organise a high-level sitting of the leadership of their parties to send a message to the grassroots that it is possible to differ amicably.
With the nation gearing for elections likely to be held early next year, political clashes are bound to arise along with high political temperatures and we urge the other principals to the GPA to step up to the plate and join President Mugabe in denouncing all forms of violence.
The Head of State and Government is on record not only deploring violence, as he did in Parliament on Tuesday, but also calling on his partners in Government to organise joint sittings of the senior leadership of their political parties to show the grassroots that it is possible to find a happy way of differing.
Tuesday’s skirmishes during such a grand national occasion make it imperative that the joint sitting be held as a matter of urgency.
After such a historic meeting we urge the leadership to organise similar meetings down to the cell or ward level so that the message permeates down party structures.
There is no need to bludgeon each other over political differences for in a highly-literate society such as ours, electoral contestation should occur at the level of ideas.
The inclusive Government is there to pave way for the holding of fresh elections; the people rival supporters are terrorising are the same people who will stand in judgment over their parties in the ballot box.
We also urge the police to be proactive and nab all perpetrators of violence wherever their take their barbarism to.
Online Reporter