Wave after wave of rights violations
In post-coup Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) has continued to record wave after wave of human rights violations as the democratic space continues to narrow.
Criticising government has easily become a reason for one to get arrested, harassed, detained or denied access to government services.
The line between government and the ruling party has been violated, continues to fade and in all this, the ordinary citizen is the most affected.
Just this month, ZPP recorded a wave of evictions and demolitions resulting from the government’s policy inconsistences, corruption and interference in local authorities.
This happened as service delivery continued to decline, and despite pronouncements by government that it had embarked on an emergency rehabilitation of urban roads, the current efforts have remained hardly noticeable as the majority of roads and other public infrastructure remain in a state of decay.
There was also a wave of repression marked by arrests and detention of civil and political rights activists.
This month, the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) dominated the list of human rights violators at over 44%, followed by Zanu PF and the municipal police at just over 21% each.
Municipal police and the ZRP enforced the demolition of houses and informal trading spaces and the ZRP was responsible for enforcing the lockdown imposed by government in response to the rise in cases of Covid-19. Zanu PF, which is geared up for the 2023 elections and is in the process of setting up local structures countrywide, is doing so with little respect for the people’s freedom of association.
In all this, general citizens make 99% of the victims of the human rights violations recorded this month.
Food and other aid continue to be used as a tool for political coercion and this month, ZPP recorded 31 cases of discrimination, during aid distribution with Manicaland, Masvingo and Midlands topping the list at 22.22% each.
In the month of June 2021, government imposed a lockdown to contain the rising cases of Covid-19 and this happened amid a wave of different human rights violations largely perpetrated by government agents, and the ruling party.
It is in light of this that ZPP launched a Resist, Reject and Report Violence Campaign, #RRRV2023, to document and expose perpetrators of politically-motivated violence as well as to create an active citizenry that resists, rejects and reports violence.
As part of its mandate of monitoring and documenting violations and peace-building, ZPP aims to contribute to a peaceful electoral process where citizens are empowered to reject candidates who incite them to use hate language and to engage in politically-motivated violence.
In the month of June, there was a general escalation in political activities countrywide, and in some areas where there had been generally acceptable tolerance of opposition activities, the space is narrowing on the back of Zanu PF’s reactivation of its electoral activities.
The ruling party, which has always used all methods, hook or crook, to gain political mileage, is running a campaign where it is targeting to have five million votes in the 2023 elections.
The campaign was launched in 2019, but its implementation accelerated this year.
During the launch of the campaign, the then Zanu PF secretary of the commissariat Victor Matemadanda said the strategy was not only having five million as potential voters, but people who are loyal to Zanu PF.
On the other hand, the main opposition, the MDC Alliance, has said it is targeting six million voters and it launched its mass rural mobilisation strategy in May 2021.
The opposition party’s secretary for rural mobilisation and strategy, Happymore Chidziva, said from rural areas they were not targeting a specific age group.
In the previous elections, both Zanu PF and the MDC Alliance attained less than three million votes each, so targeting eleven million votes is a huge feat, and what is being witnessed in the communities shows the extent to which the parties are prepared to go to achieve this.
In the history of Zimbabwean elections, the highest number of people who voted was in 2018 when a total 4,8 million people cast their ballots.
So, the five million that Zanu PF targets and the MDC Alliance’s six-million target add up to 11 million people, and Zimbabwe’s population is 14 million, about seven million of which are adults.
The ambition by the two main political parties can only point to an explosive electoral campaign period.
On the side of Zanu PF, there has been widespread use of food and other aid as weapons of coercing people to join and be active members of the party.
This is happening mainly in all the Mashonaland and Matabeleland provinces as well as the Midlands and Masvingo.
In some areas like Matabeleland North, Zanu PF has used the influence that traditional leaders have to forcibly recruit members.
Countrywide, Zanu PF officials are forcing people to join cell and branch structures of the party and this is part of the process of building up a list of the expected five million voters.
Zanu PF activists and in some cases, the police have crushed the opposition MDC Alliance’s attempts to campaign.
In Bulawayo, the party has been attempting to do door-to-door campaigns, but the police have continued to either disrupt them, or ban them.
The tussle for the rural vote is likely to have a huge impact on the human rights situation in the country.
This is because there is a likelihood of an increase in inter-party violence.
In one of the interviews in Murehwa, an MDC Alliance supporter, who is a victim of politically motivated arson in previous elections, said: “This time if they (Zanu PF supporters) burn my house, I will also burn theirs. It is tit-for-tat.”
What this calls for is the strengthening of electoral reforms that enable a level playing field ahead of 2023.
There is also need for inter-party dialogue to carve out the long-standing scourge of unresolved political violence cases.
Only this can allow citizens to approach campaigns and electoral processes in a democratic and tolerant way.