Chiefs should get out of politics

There was nothing new or amazing from the chiefs Kariba meeting. We all are aware that chiefs have been benefiting tremendously from the crumbs that have consistently fallen from the dictators sumptuous table.

The traditionalists are merely singing for their dinner and salivating for more. In the past, Mugabe has provided such benefits as vehicles, electricity, salaries and good roads to the chiefs while their subjects were wallowing in abject poverty. This has made the chiefs feel as important as democratically elected members of parliament (MPs). Some chiefs have gone on to threaten those of their subjects that are known to support the MDC and other political parties with eviction from their rural areas. Other chiefs have openly deleted the names of those of their subjects that are alleged to support the MDC from the lists of beneficiaries of drought relief and other humanitarian assistance.

It is therefore necessary that our draft constitution should exclude traditional chiefs from getting involved in politics. They should also be excluded from being members of Parliament. They should be excluded from participating in rural district councils. That should teach them a good lesson about how not to delve in partisan politics when you are a traditional leader.

Many rural folk have paid a heavy price for expressing their democratic right of supporting a political party of their choice. Others have had to flee their rural homes into urban areas because of the threats they received from traditional leaders such as chiefs and headmen. This has to be stopped. Chiefs do not own this country. This country belongs to all of us and must be governed in a manner that benefits all its citizens.

Individually, traditional leaders are free to support any electoral candidate of their choice. But for all the chiefs to declare that Mugabe is their presidential candidate is a travesty of democracy. It confirms the accusation that, by and large, traditional leaders, especially chiefs, are puppets of Mugabe and Zanu (PF). It must be embarrassing to the chiefs that their chosen presidential candidate was overwhelmingly rejected by the voters in March 2008. It is obvious that their Kariba declaration was manipulated by Zanu (PF), which is desperate for political support in the forthcoming elections. What the chiefs did has given the voters in this country all the more valid reason for rejecting Mugabe and Zanu (PF) at the forthcoming polls.

Chiefs are not supposed to be a wing of Zanu (PF), just like the youth and the womens wings of that party. It is now imperative that the new draft constitution should include provisions that bar traditional chiefs from engaging in partisan politics. Chiefs that want to play the political game should abandon their chieftaincies first. The MDC and other political parties should issue statements deploring this action by the chiefs as soon as possible. Rural-based voters need to be conscientised to ignore the chiefs Kariba announcement as politically meaningless and irrelevant to the realities facing this country. We all know that it is not the chiefs that Zanu (PF) wants on its side. Rather, it is the people or the voters in their respective areas that are being targeted. The chiefs will be used by the reeling party as instruments of mobilization for the benefit of Mugabe and his decaying political party. But the people of this country are now politically mature, and they will have the last laugh.