Hands off our Chiefs

It's now over ten months since Tendai Biti and colleagues left a seemingly hopeless Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC-T to form the People's Democratic Party (PDP). However, PDP has not inspired any hope and has rather relapsed into the tendencies of the party they left.

PDP officials have refused to shed off the habit of ever complaining over trifling issues which characterizes their former political home, the MDC-T. It's unfortunate that the PDP has chosen to be cry babies and major in trivialities when its followers are expecting serious political and socio-economic business. PDP must never blame the electorate when they refuse to invest their votes in them, come 2018.

Gorden Moyo, PDP's secretary general this week accused the Chiefs of being Zanu PF agents of coercion.  He said chiefs "act as auxiliaries of the ruling party.

"…traditional authorities such as chiefs, headman or women and village heads have been deployed to police villagers, campaign for Zanu PF candidates, shunt villagers to vote according to their village arrangements thereby violating the sanctity of the ballot, cajole suspected opposition members to pretend to be illiterate so as to be assisted to vote for Zanu PF…," Moyo was quoted in the Daily News issue of 27 February.

He went on to lay a myriad of other untested allegations that border on intimidation. After all, it is not the first time that traditional chiefs have received thinly veiled and open threats from the MDC formations. Tsvangirai, the political tutor of Moyo threatened the Chiefs with unspecified actions upon his ascension to power.

"To the Chiefs, I want to say the current Constitution does not allow you to be involved in politics. So if there are any chiefs who say they are Zanu PF, I want to warn you that you will regret your action because after the next election, it will be us in power," said Tsvangirai during a campaign for the 2013 harmonized elections in Chiweshe.

Thank God that Tsvangirai dismally failed to be in power. God sometimes reads the intention behind every wish.

In July 2013, while addressing party supporters at Mandava Stadium in Zvishavane, Tsvangirai said: "In Masvingo there is Chief Charumbira who says you cannot hold MDC meetings in my jurisdiction. That is going to stop when we are in government."

Traditional Chiefs are threatened with persecution for exercising their democratic right to choose a political party of their taste. Chiefs are also human beings with a political freewill which they must exercise without fear.

 It is unfortunate that such threats are coming from the people who claim to be democrats. It is a misnomer for Moyo's party to have the middle term 'democracy.' There is no democracy at all when his party attempts to stifle the exercise of same.

Moyo's accusations are not true. Having been a presiding officer, this writer can dismiss those allegations with authority. Chiefs are not an extension of Zanu PF, neither of any other political party. It is up to an individual chief to go with a party that has values that are compatible with his aspirations and hopes. They comply 100% with the constitutional provision that disallow them from being party activists.

Zanu PF has an ideology that has endeared itself to most of the traditional leaders. The revolutionary party has great reverence for the chiefs. The party has restored the institution of traditional leadership. The revolutionary party and the chiefs have been together in the trenches while fighting for this country. That relationship is difficult to break and it's not in any way sinister.

Chiefs have been and are the owners of this country. The Europeans, who have been bankrolling the MDC-T since 1999, violently seized the land from the hands of the chiefs, which resulted in a bloody war of liberation. After independence, Zanu PF embarked on a programme to return the stolen land to its rightful owners. It is chiefly the reason that saw the formation of the MDC.
The former white farmers generously sponsored the MDC with the hope of seeing a reversal of the land reform if it gets in power. The Chiefs are not that dull. They saw through that plot. Even if Moyo was a Chief, naturally he was going to support a party that advances his interests as a traditional leader. In this case it is Zanu PF.

It's not a crime to do so in a democracy like ours. After all, the MDC and other opposition parties have other constituencies that freely support them. For example, most of the Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are the opposition's foot soldiers. They are used to penetrate in the rural areas under the guise of charity work.

If it were Zanu PF with NGO alliances who are nefariously involved in the political fray, the opposition would have cried foul.

The opposition enjoys great support from international media, some of which beam illegally into the country. Zanu PF has never cried with the same intensity that the opposition is doing. PDP must just leave traditional chiefs alone and face their political nemesis.