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Chombo promotes chaos in Harare
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
Extracted from Crisis in Zimbabwe Weekly Update
May 31-June 06, 2004

The government once again showed that there exists a huge democratic deficit in Zimbabwe when it suspended 13 MDC councillors of the Harare City Council for holding elections of a deputy mayor and committee chairpersons in accordance with the Urban Councils Act.

It should be put on record that since the election into office of the opposition councillors in 2002, Ignatius Chombo the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, and Member of Parliament of a small rural constituency of Zvimba South district (voted into Parliament by a total constituency of 16 175 people) has maintained a systematic intrusion into the administration of the capital city. He single-handedly removed the democratically elected MDC mayor Elias Mudzuri, after serving for less than ten months.

His interference has effectively paralysed council from providing quality services for the Harare residents and, in effect, discharging its mandate. He has ensured that sitting council has no access to council resources meaning minimal or no delivery of service including poor garbage management, poor water quality and poor recreation facility maintenance, to mention just a few. Having created this void, the ruling party has quickly usurped this mandate through its imposed governor’s office, giving the impression that this office is a saviour.

Indeed, Chombo has become the de facto but not de jure executive mayor of Harare in clear flagrant violation of the Zimbabwe Constitution and the Urban Councils Act. While, according to the Act, the Minister can issue policy directives; the law does not allow him to give administrative directives. The government has decided to ignore the laws of the land to safeguard its parochial interests in the capital.

Minister Chombo should leave with the legal reality that the Act allows councillors to elect a deputy mayor and chairpersons of committees after every year. Sekesai Makwavarara, the current acting mayor who defected from the MDC, should have stood down last August when her term of office expired and the councillors had a legitimate and legal right to elect councillor Christopher Mushonga as the deputy mayor this week

It is critical that the government respects and restores the rule of law in the country in order for citizens to do the same. If the government violates rules of procedure willy-nilly then this country will have no peace, as this might be an incentive for lawbreakers to follow suit. It is also important to note that the power in Zimbabwe is not through consent of the governed but through selective manipulation of the law and coercion.

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