DRACONIAN DÉJÀ VU
As Zimbabwe heads into election season, Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration is accused of using strong-arm tactics to neutralise critics. The passing of a draconian new bill will only reinforce that view
When Faith Ngorima saw armoured police trucks and 30 baton-wielding members of the anti-riot squad milling around the home of Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) MP Costa Machingauta on January 14, she didn’t expect any trouble. Ngorima was among a group that was attending a local cell meeting in the opposition bastion of Budiriro, south of Harare.
“I didn’t make much of the police’s presence,” Ngorima tells the FM. “I thought they were there to ensure public order and peace.”
She was wrong.
A few minutes later, armed police charged towards the venue and attacked those gathered there. Ngorima, who was just outside the yard, took to her heels, seeking refuge at a neighbour’s house. Moments later the police kicked down doors and force-marched opposition supporters out of the premises.
“I begged them not to beat me and let me walk on my own,” Ngorima recalls.
Though they allowed her to do so, others were not so lucky. Ngorima tells of how an officer hit a woman in front of her so hard with his baton that she collapsed, unconscious. “She only regained consciousness several hours later.”
Ngorima and 24 others were bundled into a police truck, in which they were held for several hours. In the end, the “Budiriro 25” spent 13 days in detention at Harare’s remand prison — a comparatively short period compared with some opposition activists — before lawyers provided by the Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum secured their bail.
Ngorima’s arrest is just one of many in recent months as President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration clamps down ahead of elections on August 23.
Just last week, the Zanu-PF-dominated National Assembly passed the “Patriotic Bill ”— the Criminal Law (Codification & Reform) Amendment Bill — by a vote of 99 to 17. Once approved by the Senate — also dominated by the ruling party — the bill will be sent to Mnangagwa for his signature.
The bill seeks to criminalise action that “wilfully damage[s] the sovereignty and national interest” of Zimbabwe, and prohibits communication with foreign officials that “harm[s] the country’s positive image and integrity or reputation”.
As TimesLIVE reports, it aims to make criminals of those issuing “statements deemed unpatriotic, attending meetings inside or outside Zimbabwe aimed at overthrowing the government, or to lobby for economic sanctions and trade boycotts”.
Penalties run to 20 years in prison.
But Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights has argued that the vagueness of the bill’s provisions make them “prone to abuse by law enforcement”, TimesLIVE reports.
It says the human rights organisation is “gravely concerned” that the “vague criminalisation of meetings between Zimbabwean citizens and foreign governments violates rights to freedom of assembly, association and expression guaranteed in the constitution”.
Political analyst Rashweat Mukundu is blunt. “This is the consolidation of authoritarianism post the 2017 coup by ZanuPF [that unseated Robert Mugabe]”, he tells the FM. This entrenchment of authoritarianism “is exactly what we are seeing with the passage of the ‘Patriotic Bill’ — essentially to shut down the opposition and civic voices in their engagement with the international community.
“Zanu-PF is saying that whatever challenges you face in Zimbabwe — be it that you are beaten, abused and arrested, or your party supporters are killed — you can’t take these issues to the [international community]. For me, this is the clearest indication that Zimbabwe is becoming a fascist state.”
Another draconian piece of legislation awaits Mnangagwa’s signature: the Private Voluntary Organisations (PVO) Amendment Bill. Under the guise of improving the accountability of charities, it seeks to prevent PVOs from organising politically, with the state empowered to interfere in their governance, funding and activities, News24 reports.
As it is, Zimbabwean authorities have used the unamended PVO Act to clamp down on civil society. In January, for example, they revoked the registrations of 291 NGOs and civil society organisations for “noncompliance” with the act.
According to the state-owned Herald, labour & social welfare minister Paul Mavima claimed registration had been withdrawn from NGOs for national security reasons, for failing to submit audited accounts or for straying from their mandates.
But, as Human Rights Watch deputy director Africa Ashwanee Budoo-Scholtz said at the time: “Zimbabwe’s repression of civil society organisations needs to stop, especially in light of the general election this year.” The state, he added, was using the law “to silence the exercise of fundamental democratic rights”.
Now, the proposed amendments will give legal force to a clampdown already
well under way. Since last year, more than 100 opposition supporters and critics of Mnangagwa have been arrested — some detained without trial and convicted on apparently spurious charges.
Last June, the dismembered body of CCC official Moreblessing Ali was found weeks after she was kidnapped outside a pub in southern Harare. Zanu-PF supporter Pius Mukandi Jamba admitted to the crime and is serving time in jail.
After Zanu-PF and opposition supporters clashed at Ali’s funeral, 16 opposition activists were arrested. CCC deputy chair Job Sikhala was taken into custody for allegedly inciting the violence. He spent more than 300 days in pretrial detention before being convicted last month of obstruction of justice, and fined $600. He still faces other charges.
A month after the “Nyatsime 16” were arrested, the police nabbed 36 individuals, including the leaders of the Zimbabwe Transformative Party, for convening an “illegal prayer meeting”. Party leader Parere Kunyenzura spent almost 200 days in custody.
Add to the count journalists and anticorruption campaigners such as Hopewell Chin’ono, detained for “incitement to participate in a gathering with the intent to promote public violence, breaches of the peace or bigotry”; award-winning writer Tsitsi Dangarembga, found guilty in September 2022 of inciting public violence during a 2020 anti-corruption protest; Jacob Ngarivhume, an opposition leader sentenced to 36 months in jail for his
role in that same anti-corruption march ... The list is long.
Critics say Mnangagwa is using strong-arm tactics to destabilise the opposition ahead of the election, while using the law to harass vocal critics. Speaking to the FM, CCC Youth spokesperson Stephen Chuma says the arrest and jailing of opposition officials is a “clear indication that under Emmerson Mnangagwa Zimbabwe is now a fullblown dictatorship”.
“The conviction of opposition officials ahead of general elections is also a reminder that Mnangagwa is borrowing from Ian Smith’s oppression book,” he adds — a reference to the last white prime minister of the then Rhodesia, who jailed leaders such as Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo on spurious charges during the struggle for majority rule.
Despite the apparent intimidation, Chuma is confident of the CCC’s chances in the election. “Mnangagwa can’t arrest citizens’ love for our president [CCC leader] Nelson Chamisa and the winds of change blowing across the length and breadth of Zimbabwe.”
But the road to an electoral victory will be fraught. As Mukundu tells the FM: “The benefit of the doubt that [Mnangagwa] had in 2018 is gone. He goes into the August 23 elections to be judged on his performance — and this is below par, as inflation remains high and the economy [is] wobbling.”
As a result, he says, the ruling party’s strategy is “to limit the space for opposi
tion mobilisation. The sentencing to jail terms of opposition leaders is meant to send a message to his rivals that he means business.”
A cocktail of laws inherited from the colonial regime is already used to inhibit movement and political gatherings.
Under the law, for example, political groups have to seek permission from the police before convening a meeting. The opposition, however, believes the force to be “partisan” and subservient to Zanu-PF.
The police brush off the criticism. Spokesperson and assistant commissioner Paul Nyathi tells the FM that because Zimbabwe is now in election mode, “allegations from political parties will be exaggerated”.
In any event, he says the authority over rallies is decentralised and handled at local level. “If opposition officials and others feel their rights have been hindered then they can seek recourse at the courts.”
And, he adds, “we have arrested people from Zanu-PF and the CCC, so the allegation we are controlled by Zanu-PF doesn’t hold water”.
Zanu-PF spokesperson Chris Mutsvangwa also denies any claim of favouritism. He tells the FM his party is “a private voluntary entity ... not the government of Zimbabwe. There is an executive, a judiciary and a legislature. The [police] answer to these constitutional bodies.”
As things stand, Mukundu does not expect the 2023 poll to be free and fair, given how the opposition is being prevented from mobilising.
He’s not alone. Speaking to Al Jazeera, Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum executive director Musa Kika said bans on opposition gatherings are a “timetested strategy” of Zanu-PF to instil fear in the opposition.
“[It is] a cycle that repeats itself every election year. This is obviously abuse of the criminal justice system and abuse of the constitution that provides rights to a fair trial and the like.”
The conviction of opposition officials ahead of general elections is also a reminder that Mnangagwa is borrowing from Ian Smith’s oppression book
Stephen Chuma