The Zimbabwe Peace Project (ZPP) said combined council, parliamentary and
presidential elections that are one and half months away could turn out to
be the most violent in a decade, adding food aid was also increasingly being
used as a political tool with villagers being asked to produce ZANU PF
membership cards to get aid.Politically motivated violence and human rights abuses have accompanied
Zimbabwe’s elections since the emergence in 1999 of the main opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party as the first potent threat to
President Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF’s stranglehold on power.”The country’s usual political hotspots are likely to be as violent as they
have been over the years,” said ZPP national director Jestina Mukoko during
presentation of a report on political violence and rights abuses during
previous national polls in 2000, 2002 and 2005.”We are going to have an upsurge of political violence especially in
Manicaland from where new political entrant Simba Makoni hails,” said
Mukoko, who largely blamed politically motivated violence on militant
supporters of Mugabe and ZANU PF.Makoni, who was a member of ZANU PF’s inner politburo cabinet, last week
shook Zimbabwe’s political establishment to the core when he announced that
he would challenge Mugabe in the March 29 presidential poll to be held
together with parliamentary and council elections.ZANU PF on Tuesday announced Makoni’s expulsion from the party while war
veterans have labeled Makoni a sellout and called for him to be beaten up.The veterans of Zimbabwe’s 1970s independence war are hardliner supporters
of Mugabe who he has used in the past to intimidate opponents. The war
veterans led Mugabe’s controversial farm seizure programme, beating and
killing several white farmers in a bid to force them to surrender their
properties. Painting a deem picture ahead, Mukoko said the law appeared temporarily
suspended during election times with marauding bands of war veterans and
ZANU PF youths allowed to harass and intimidate suspected members of the
opposition.”It seems as if the law is suspended during election time,” said Mukoko.”People are forced to chant party slogans and produce ruling ZANU PF party
cards before they can get food aid and people committing these heinous
crimes are doing so with impunity,” she said, adding that ZPP researchers
had also been subjected to violence as they carried out their work in the
provinces.In addition to Manicaland, the ZPP also singled out Masvingo and Midlands
provinces as the most volatile. The two provinces recorded the highest
number of assaults, rape, murder, destruction of property, torture camps and
incidents of civil servants harassment over the last three elections,
according to the group.The ZPP spoke as Britain – which is Zimbabwe’s former colonial master, also
questioned the chances of the southern African country’ polls being free and
fair.British Africa Minister Mark Malloch-Brown said the odds are against
Zimbabwe’s elections being free or fair despite South African efforts to
mediate between Mugabe and the opposition.The Zimbabwe Catholic Church’s human rights arm also voiced concern over the
polls, which it said were already marred by questions over the legality of
the government commission tasked to run the polls.The Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) said preparations for
the elections were hurried, while there was inadequate education of voters,
a situation it said has led to confusion and reduced prospects of truly
democratic polls. –
Post published in: News