POLITICAL tempers have started running high again three
months after the country went through a gruelling election period, with the MDC
Alliance accusing police of taking sides and blocking the opposition party’s
19th anniversary celebrations scheduled for Saturday last week while Zanu PF
was allowed to host its own rally in Mbare on the same day.
The anniversary celebrations were banned for the second
time in as many weeks by police, with officer commanding Harare South District
Chief Superintendent Winston Muzah citing the cholera outbreak in Harare where
the medieval disease has claimed 49 lives.
“May I take this opportunity to advise you that the
government ban on public gatherings following the outbreak of cholera in Harare
is still standing. In the interest of public safety and total containment of
the cholera epidemic, we direct that the intended celebrations be postponed
until the epidemic is declared over. Meanwhile, the intended celebration is not
sanctioned,” he said.
Police, however, allowed Zanu PF to host its victory
celebration rally addressed by its secretary for administration Patrick
Chinamasa in Mbare, drawing fire from the opposition.
MDC Alliance spokesperson Jacob Mafume condemned police’s
“selective application of the law”.
“It would appear that we have a strange cholera which only
affects MDC gatherings. The Zanu PF meetings are being held in stadiums across
the country and in Harare. This is selective application of the law and
violation of the Constitution,” he said.
“But we are told every time we want to gather, there is
cholera. The police are back to their shameless behaviour.”
The opposition party’s organising secretary Amos Chibaya
said Zanu PF believed in abuse of State institutions to entrench its
stranglehold on power.
“Our anniversary rally at Gwanzura today [Saturday] was
cancelled by the ZRP because of cholera, but the police were happy to sanction
a Zanu PF inter-district rally in Mbare.
The capture of State institutions by Zanu PF must be investigated.
If you take notice, this is the same area where we wanted to conduct our
celebrations. It’s the Southerton area which we went and applied for permission
to have our celebrations, but it’s funny that ours was not sanctioned, but Zanu
PF’s was sanctioned,” he said.
Chibaya said the MDC, angered by the police stance, were
now going to hold their celebrations and would not respect the ban because it
was now clear that the bans were political.
“We have plans to go ahead with the anniversary and nothing
will stop us this time. We have other avenues to go on about gathering people.
As you know, we had a clean-up campaign in which we were able to get a huge
crowd,” Chibaya said.
Contacted for comment, Zanu PF spokesperson Simon Khaya
Moyo, said:“Let the police respond to that. Zanu PF does not give out rally
permissions. Ask the police. They will give you the reasons why they did that.”
Police recently pledged to discharge their duties in a
non-partisan manner following the ushering in of the new dispensation led by
President Emmerson Mnangagwa.
“The police are no longer doing business as before, but in
this new trajectory, police officers have given guidelines. Some of them were
not doing their work properly and they are now doing it properly,” national
police spokesperson Senior Assistant Commissioner Charity Charamba said then.
Charamba could not be reached for comment yesterday as her
mobile phone went unanswered.
However, MDC Alliance youth leader Happymore Chidziva said
actions by the police this weekend put paid to any illusion that there was a
new dispensation or that the police had turned a new leaf.
“Any illusion that could have been there has been eroded,
what we have is the same old people doing the same old things, using the police
and the army to ensure they remain in power. They have no respect for the will
of the people. How do they justify banning our celebrations, but allowing those
of Zanu PF? The will of the people will, however, not be arrested in the
prisons of the political junta,” he said. Newsday
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