Tragedy on Saint Valentine’s
The same overall situation in January continued into February. The
death of MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai on 14 February after a long
battle with cancer would however change the situation almost
immediately. With no clear succession policy in place, his death plunged
his party into a succession crisis that would see it descend into
violence and eventually another split. The intraparty violence that
erupted at the iconic leader’s funeral with the assault of three senior
party officials would escalate throughout the month to debunk the myth
that political violence was a preserve of the ruling party.
The month of February thus saw an increase in cases of political
violence with 17 cases of intraparty violence being recorded in both
Zanu PF and the MDC-T. Other than that, there was however a
welcome 30% decrease in recorded violations. 176 cases were
recorded in February, down from 245 in January. Cases of harassment
and intimidation decreased significantly from 169 to 118, followed by a
decrease in discrimination cases, down from 57 to 20 cases.
Manicaland province continued to have the highest number of
recorded violations with 34 cases, followed by Mashonaland Central
with 29, and Midlands with 28 cases.
Zanu PF continued to account for most of the violations at 46%,
followed by the MDC-T at 28%, up from 0.2%. While the violations by
Zanu PF remained localised and mainly related to discrimination (the
partisan distribution of government aid), and harassment and
intimidation (demands for voter registration information and political
intimidation), violations by the MDC-T mainly related to intraparty
violence/squabbling associated with the party’s succession dispute,
which eventually pitted Deputy Party President Thokozani Khuphe and
Co-Vice President Nelson Chamisa. Violations by state actors on the
other hand remained minimal if grave with the death of three protestors
at the hands of the police in Harare following public disturbances over
plans to remove commuter omnibuses from the city centre. Men (402)
continued to be the main violators compared to women (44).
In terms of the victims, 89% could still not be associated with any
political party, while 5.5% were associated with Zanu PF and 4.8% with
the MDC-T. 737 of the victims were female and 934 male.
The Ides of March
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