BY MELODY CHAITWA
BINDURA
A month after Bindura South Constituency, for the first time, went to the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), villagers in ward 16 of the constituency are tasting the bitterness of voting for the party they believed would bring democracy and economic recovery to Zimbabwe.
The people of Ward 16 voted overwhelmingly for the MDC with Zanu ((PF)) losing in all the categories, presidential, council, parliamentary and senatorial.
Upon realising that the people had dumped them, Zanu ((PF)) officials in the area are now on a trail of avenging their loss by terrorising the villagers and forcing them to attend their meetings.
Last Friday Ward 16 residents were force-marched to a bushy area where Zanu ((PF)) officials forced them confess their ‘sin’ of voting for and supporting the MDC.
The villagers were forced to surrender their MDC t-shirts and cards or face another war in which their houses would be burnt and their families killed.
They were then forced to sing songs of the liberation war. The following day they were once again disturbed from their harvesting and summoned to another ‘cleansing’ meeting.
However, they decided that was enough and refused to be intimidated any longer.
“I am an MDC member at heart and no amount of intimidation can change what is in my heart, if there is another election I will vote for the MDC again,” said one woman.
“I will say their slogan but that will not change my mind, after all our new councillor and member of parliament are MDC,” said a retired engineer who was bundled to the meeting.
The MDC councillor for Ward 16, Nehemiah Mhembere went to one of the meetings to warn the Zanu ((PF)) officials not to scare his supporters.
“I can not allow them to punish my supporters for making their choice and I will visit their (the ZANU ((PF)) officials and local war veterans) homes to tell them to stop this,” said Mhembere.
He also said he feared that his supporters would be subjected to the terrible torture being committed against perceived MDC supporters countrywide and said he would ‘press every button to make sure that his ward was safe’.
Post published in: News