Harare can’t keep knifing mayors, still survive as a city

WHILE almost all the media coverage and discussion on the CCC recalls and the fallout that this has resulted for the party as voters that once supported it just stay at home or vote Zanu PF, the more serious damage has been in the recalls for city councillors which will shortly see Harare on its third mayor since the August elections.

The meltdown and implosion of what was the main opposition party on the basis of the August results, and what appears to be the discovery by so many of its former supporters that the continuing internecine wars simply make so much of opposition politics irrelevant, had little practical effect at the Parliamentary level except leaving some communities without representation for a few weeks.

But as most CCC MPs and senators do very little except draw their pay and allowances, and rarely even drive through their constituencies let alone interact with people and communities, their loss was not a major loss.

But in the towns and cities where the CCC has a majority on the local authority, the party is expected to do something useful to reverse the decline in urban areas and help solve the multitude of growing problems.

Instead we see the same back-stabbing and self-seeking we see in the Parliamentary caucus meltdown. Harare sees this in its most acute form, with two mayors so far dumped in less than four months, which must be some sort of local government record for both Zimbabwe and the colonial era.

All this comes after the rapid rotation of MDC-A and CCC councillors through the mayor’s parlour in the previous council, where the recall of councillors during an opposition internal war, followed by some councillors being suspended along with a swathe of senior officials for alleged abuse of office.

If anyone still wonders why Harare is among the worst directed cities in Zimbabwe, with council seemingly unable to take effective action to even maintain basic services, the fact that no one can be in the mayor’s chair for very long must be one explanation.

A city administration does need some continuity so that policies can be consistently applied for more than a few weeks or months at a time. This is why councils serve five-year terms, so they can put something together and keep it going.

It is all very well having permanent managerial staff and experts, although in the last council we had just one department head, fortunately the director of health services, who was able to be in post the whole time while acting, or acting acting, officers were running the rest of the departments.

After the August elections Clr Ian Makone, who for all his faults at least had some experience in politics and Parliament, was elected mayor with one of the CCC councillors who had been spotted in her ward as his deputy.

It was at least a start for those who wished the council to think about something serious, a group that included the central Government.

Then the mayor got the knife in his back in the party wars, as did his deputy. A new election for mayor was called and Clr Lovejoy Chitengu got the nod.

Even at that meeting there was argument between the councillor and the Town Clerk over his status.

He was included on the recall list, but his name had been spelt incorrectly as Chitegu, with one letter missing. There was no doubt who was being knifed, but the councillor took the legalistic position that the name on the list was not his.

If we were arguing about the chairmanship of a dog club this might be acceptable, but we were dealing with the most important local government post in Zimbabwe, where the need was for action, or at least not blocking those who were willing to take action, not scoring points and getting your name on the list of mayors, even for just a couple of weeks.

The inevitable happened and the spelling mistake was corrected, so Clr Chitengu has gone with his only achievement being his ability to spell his own name. That was not enough for the job. And now some other survivor of the backstabbing will be moving into office.

There was a brief period in 2018 when it looked as though a better relationship was possible. The then new mayor rejected the call by opposition leaders to boycott anything concerning President Mnangagwa, turned up in his chain to the Presidential inauguration, and immediately started working with central Government to beat back, successfully, a cholera epidemic with very low death rates.

He of course was knifed in the first round of recalls on that council, a warning to his successors that they must play opposition games rather than try and do something useful for the residents of Harare.

That council produced a record number of successors, a record that on present trends might well be broken by this council.

This opposition knife fighting, weakening an already very weak city council, presents serious problems for the central Government.

Harare is easily the largest local authority in terms of population and budget, although the budget is a wish list rather than something practical.

Central Government wants to work with all local authorities, regardless of their political make-up, to solve problems and make life better for the people.

But when the leaders of those authorities either do not want to work with Government, or cannot even stay in their chair for more than a few weeks, this becomes exceptionally difficult if not impossible.

Through declarations of state of disaster the Government can take over some functions,and has done those deemed essential for the continued existence of the people, but there are limits and this is something the next mayor is going to have to think about.

They have to be ready to swallow pride and start thinking about the city and its people, not how to make money or show how pure an opposition politician they can be.

Perhaps this is too much to wish for, but something needs to happen if Harare is to stop continuously descending into a morass.