adminEDITORIAL COMMENT: Political violence not an option
THE nation must fully rally behind President Mugabe’s call for peace and tolerance of divergent views as we count down to a referendum to choose a new constitution and subsequently elections later this year.
Addressing a capacity crowd at the National Sports Stadium in Harare to mark the country’s 32nd independence anniversary on Wednesday, President Mugabe urged peaceful campaigns ahead of the general elections later this year.
He said all forms of violence and fighting should be bygone and that these should not be allowed to interfere with people’s happiness.
“We have done wrong to our people as political leaders because we were violent, we were fighting among each other. We must take care and caution that the past is buried and care for free belonging. Membership should not be forced, people should vote freely for the party of their choice,” the President said.
This powerful message must therefore permeate down to the lowest rungs of our society. We challenge political leaders to take this message of peace home to their grassroots supporters.
The President, together with the leaders of the MDC factions, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai and Professor Welshman Ncube, has on numerous occasions called for an end to political violence.
In fact last year, the three leaders addressed a meeting that brought together members of the Zanu-PF Politburo and the MDCs’ national executive councilsin Harare and the message was again very clear: no to political violence.
Soon political parties will start campaigning for or against the draft constitution that is currently being finalised by the Constitutional Parliamentary Select Committee (Copac), after which the country is expected to go for elections.
We urge the political parties to continue preaching the gospel of peace to their supporters. Their leaders have taken the lead in denouncing violence and there should not be pockets of violence in any part of the country.
Party supporters must take a leaf from the unity shown by the parties leaders who sat side by side during Independence Day celebrations at various centres throughout the country on Wednesday. The same leaders from the three main political parties that formed the Inclusive Government sit side by side in Cabinet, mingle in Parliament and exchange notes on various issues at various fora.
We are all Zimbabweans and differences in opinion should not result in an exchange of blows. There is certainly no reason to beat up someone because they share a different view or belong to a different political party. In fact, a party whose supporters beat up people will not get votes from the same people.
As we move towards the referendum and the elections, political parties should try to outwit each other through selling their ideas and programmes to the people.
We have in the past pointed out that violence does not help any party to win votes and that those who live by the sword, always die by the sword and he who breeds violence, begets violence.
Violence itself, in whatever form, is not the best way forward and one can never use violence to advance one’s political agenda.
We do not believe violence is the solution. In any election, there are two possible outcomes — a win or a loss. The losers must therefore not resort to violence, but must accept defeat, look back and see where they went wrong and hope for the best next time.
It is high time our politics was taken to the next level, where supporters of the victor and loser would be able to sit down and share ideas, not exchange blows.
We want to once again support President Mugabe’s call for peaceful co-existence because peace is an inevitable prerequisite for sustainable development in our country.
Our country has seen so much violence over the past few years and it is high time political leaders promote national healing and tolerance.
Online Reporter