Zimbabwe’s ruling Zanu-PF party has sacked the elected mayor of Harare and forced the entire council of another city out of office as it encroaches on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change’s (MDC) control of most urban areas since 2000.
The elected mayor of Harare, Bernard Manyenyeni, was recently forced out of office by Saviour Kasukuwere, who is home affairs minister and also Zanu-PF’s political commissar.
Prior to that he sacked the entire elected MDC council in the Midlands city of Gweru, appointing other personnel, referred to as a commission’, in its place.
Shocking statistics have also emerged in a report by Eddie Cross, the MDC’s local government secretary, of tens of thousands of urban poor paying Zanu-PF-connected land barons’ for residential stands on farms bordering Harare taken from white farmers post-2000.
The buyers of the stands say they were forced to join Zanu-PF and now cannot prove they own’ the land in mushrooming informal settlements which do not have sewage facilities or roads.
Cross says Kasukuwere paralysed the Harare council, including by forcing out of office the recently-appointed town clerk James Mushore.
Kasukuwere’s local government predecessor, Ignatius Chombo, bankrupted Harare when he wrote off all outstanding rates and taxes owed by residents ahead of the 2013 elections.
Cross said mayors and council chairpersons have been suspended or dismissed on spurious grounds and replaced with partisan commissions.
The commissions then control all council activity, abuse their positions to make political appointments and misuse revenue, he said.
Cross said the adoption of a new constitution in 2013 was meant to ensure local government jurisdictions would be governed by elected officials.
The MDC took Kasukuwere to court last year after he hamstrung the Gweru council.
The court found he had acted unconstitutionally and ordered the elected council to resume work.
“When they attempted to return to their duties, the mayor (of Gweru) was arrested and held without charge and the councillors found themselves locked out of their offices.”
The court order was ignored.
Gweru is now run by a so-called commission whose members were all appointed by Kasukuwere.
The elected officials are out of office.
The next elections are in 2018.
Councillors in several other cities say they have been warned Zanu-PF is moving in them too, particularly in the south of the country.
Independent Foreign Service