And in a hopeful sign, incidents of harassment and verbal threats are on the decline.
In the first week of August, 281 meetings were held, an increase of 25 % from the 225 in the last week of July. The majority of meetings have been held in Midlands and Mash Central, while the lowest number took place in Mat South. Attendance figures have also been increasing – 76 % [214] of the gross recorded meetings were high attendance cases while 24 % [67] were low attendance cases.
Figure 2 the spread of high attendance cases.
A meeting on August 4 at Kambudzi Business Centre in Ward 12 of Umzingwane in Mat South was attended by 400 people, while on August 5 at Bayethe in Ward 14, 280 people were reportedly in attendance.
In Mashonaland Central province, high attendance cases include a meeting that was held on August 4 at Makaera Primary School in Ward 4 of Guruve South where 646 people were in attendance and another one at Chipangura Secondary School in Ward 5 of Guruve North where 600 people reportedly turned up.
The provinces of Matabeleland North, Mashonaland East and Midlands account for 79 %of the gross low attendance record.
Meetings salled off
Cases of outreach meetings called off, either because of low turnouts or because COPAC teams failed to pitch up, which had been on a decline throughout July, changed direction, increasing by 113 % to 17. However this record appears to have been inflated by records from one province, Masvingo. It was however encouraging to note that there were no reported cases of cancellations in the provinces of Mashonaland West, Mashonaland Central and Matabeleland South.
Participant figures suggest significant improvements in the mobilization of citizens for outreach consultations. A total of 49 717 people were recorded as having attended meetings in the week under review, pointing to an aggregate 7 % upswing from the 46 465 figure that were recorded in the closing week of July. The bulk was in Midlands and Mashonaland West. Both Matabeleland provinces are still struggling to mobilize people for outreach consultations.
Figure 6 – Adult Participants
The observed surge in participants was also visible at the level of adult participants which show a 12 % increase from the 35 638 recorded in the closing week of July to 39 768 recorded in the first week of August. Gender distribution remains slightly skewed towards males 52 48%. The current male participant record of 25 899 suggests an increase by 11 % from 23 413 recorded in the closing week of July. As shown on the high figures of male participants were recorded in Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland West, Masvingo and Midlands and while the two provinces of Matabeleland maintained their tradition of trailing behind.
Coaching was the most commonly committed outreach-related violation. Of the 496 outreach-related violations, 144 were cases of coaching. Political interference was the second most frequent violation accounting for 132 of the total. Most cases were recorded in the traditional politically restive provinces of Mashonaland Central, Mashonaland West and Manicaland.
Harassment
Incident of harassment remained pronounced with a total of 89 cases reported in the week under review with disturbing visibilities in the provinces of Mashonaland Central, Manicaland and Mashonaland West. But harassment appears to be on the decline in the provinces of Midlands and Masvingo with provinces such as Matabeleland North, Matabeleland South and Mashonaland East recording either a single case or none at all.
Figure 11 Provincial spread of political interference
Figure 13 Violations of freedom of speech
Incidents in which freedom of speech was clandestinely violated through verbal threats remain dotted across the provinces with a total of 131 cases reported. Freedom of speech breaches however, appear on the decline with extremely low cases in the provinces of Midlands and the Matabeleland region. But Midlands records of this week appear suspect as they reflect a radical departure from past trends.
Post published in: News