By Chantel Takudzwa Zambukira
The Citizen Coalition for Change (CCC) has accused the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission ( NPRC) of deliberately turning a blind eye on cases involving ZANU-PF activists in violent attacks against members of the opposition.
This follows recent violent scenes that happened in Murehwa in which perpetrators identifying themselves as ZANU-PF members violently attacking suspected opposition activists.
The Citizen Coalition for Change spokesperson Fadzai Mahere in a statement said what recently happened in the Murehwa is one of several such incidents that occur with the police, ZEC and NPRC turning a blind eye.
“ZEC has a constitutional obligation under section 156 to ensure that mechanisms are in place to avoid political violence and yet they kept quiet. The National Peace and Reconciliation Commission has an obligation as well to ensure that such incidents do not take place,” Mahere said.
“It is important to note that this is not an isolated incident, we call for an independent, impartial investigation into the violence that took place on our members in Murehwa,” she added.
Meanwhile, a few days ago ZANU-PF distanced itself from violence that took place in Murehwa saying the incident is most likely to have been staged by opposition in order to discredit the ruling party.
“The Province hereby distance itself from the individuals in the viral video. They are neither members of ZANU-PF Mashonaland-East Province nor only known affiliate. This clearly is the work of the Citizen Coalition for Change (CCC) an outfit with a propensity of stage managing political violence incidents in order to get attention from its Western funders.” The ZANU-PF Mashonaland-East chairperson Daniel Garwe said in a statement.
Turning to the delimitation reports presented by ZEC, Mahere said her party had a number of issues it was concerned with, which includes it’s demand for a copy of the voters roll, the division of urban constituencies and the availability of census report.
“Our concerns involve compliance of section 161 of the constitution. Are the constituencies the same in terms of numbers, are there no fake constituencies, has ZEC tabled data supporting the report after the report analysis. Our legal experts will investigate the report,” said the CCC vice president Tendai Biti as quoted by another publication.