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Challenging Chombo's undue influence
Takura Zhangazha
October 17, 2004

http://www.thestandard.co.zw/read.php?st_id=809

THE crusades by the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, Ignatious Chombo, against local authorities in opposition strongholds is the stuff that depressing politics is made of.

While it may sound like everyday language, the consistency the minister has shown in dealing heavy-handedly with local governments has undermined the democratisation process where it matters the most in Zimbabwe.

Perhaps with deliberate and malicious intent, Chombo has begun a redefinition of what it means to be a locally elected politician. He has, albeit with the acquiescence of the executive, trivialised local government elections, local political institutions and community-based organisations beyond the pale.

He has shown that local elections are secondary to the national ones not only in relation to the practice of power, but more so in terms of their relevance to the bringing of freedom to the doorstep of the people of Zimbabwe.

In the capital of Harare, there is a subtle if sometimes non-existent discontent with the Chombo sanctioned remnants at Town House. The water crisis, for all its health hazards as well as its continuity, is being articulated in the most political of fashions. The government and its media have placed the blame on the opposition councillors while the opposition, in turn, has blamed blatant government interference in the activities of council as the reason why the capital city is in its current state.

What one might however disagree with is the reaction to these machinations by Chombo and officials in the ministry as well as the council. It is the familiar feeling of anguish, hopelessness that pervades many a Harare resident when they wake up in the morning to the stark realisation that there is no water to take a bath/shower and any other such uses that we make of water every morning. Beyond that, it is acquiescence, and the shrugging of shoulders.

To explain this acquiescence, it it is convenient and preferable simply to point a finger at the repressive laws and brutality of the police but that is patently inadequate. Chombo functions on the basis of the politicisation of local government institutions and issues. At every turn in his political manoevering, he waits to utilise the Urban Councils Act to undermine the opposition led councils strictly for the purpose of the reclaiming political ground lost by Zanu PF.

An example of this type of political trickery has been the manner in which he is dealing with the Bulawayo City Council's position on starving residents in the City of Kings. Chombo conveniently ignores the actual issue of the dying and starving, and pursues the mayor with venom.

The opposition councillors on the other hand, react in kind. They react with a simultaneous politicisation of local council issues. They got into office by correctly claiming the failure of Zanu PF but have since proven inept at de-politicising their electoral victories in order to garner support among the residents.

One might argue, that everything in Zimbabwe is political and therefore the councillors were not naive or simplistic in attacking Chombo from a politicised view. True, this argument would sustain a conversation but I hazard to add, would come nowhere near sustaining a continually politically conscious urban populace.

What perhaps should be addressed is the meaning of "local issues" and as a consequence, the significance of local government in the context of Zimbabwe's dictatorship. local issues related mainly to the provision of amenities within a specific community. These services will include running (and clean) water provision, health services, education and management public transport.

This goes both for the rural and the urban communities that comprise Zimbabwe. These issues have direct relevance to people's lives and essentially, are life and death matters. They do not in any way pre-suppose a distant governing authority that is run solely on the basis of the number of council meetings held or the type of offices that an authority is housed in. Local issues are "living" or "organic" issues that are articulated everyday in the locality in which they are residing. In other words, local issues, because they relate to the day-to-day events of people's lives, are the bedrock of mass mobilisation.

Chombo, by running the Harare council into the ground, should have created fertile ground for discontent within the capital. On the contrary however, he has successfully managed, at least for now, to create a comfortable victory for himself. Because the elected councillors reacted in an "political" sense, by correctly accusing the government of usurping the people's will, they lost out on the meaning of continued engagement with the local issues affecting residents.

To clarify, the engagement with local issues does not mean council resolutions and availability of funds only from rates or central government. It means continued mobilisation of residents on the basis of the evident discontent over the manner in which services are being provided.

To centre on power institutions is to miss the mark widely. A city council exists in so far as it regulates the city, but the issues that are affecting residents exist with them and they must be moved to act upon issues that are being ignored.

When there have been the organisation of demonstrations, issues of mass action, the central focus has been targeting institutions of authority in the country and articulation of a good governance agenda. The brave men and women who have been organising these demonstrations have to include as part of their grievances, local issues.

Moreover, they need to decentralise these demonstrations to places such as residential areas, where even though they will get less press coverage, they will etch themselves into the local psyche for working on more immediate concerns.

It is from there that there will be a renewal of the popular support against the government and the likes of Chombo.

The former MDC councilors for Harare should now be directly involved in challenging Chombo on the basis of community mobilisation in their wards, and the creation of alternative means of dealing with the problems bedeviling the residents.

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