Provincial Summaries
Bulawayo
People continued to wallow in poverty due to high unemployment levels and relentless
closure of industries. Former Vice President Joice Mujuru’s Zimbabwe People First (ZimPF)
party which was making inroads in the Province was rocked by infighting as some members
were objecting to war veteran and former Zanu-PF mobiliser, Jabulani Sibanda’s influence
saying he was a perpetrator of gross human rights violations. Yet others were resisting
inclusion of former Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T) members saying those were
not to be trusted as they changed parties frequently.
A National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) consultative meeting was held at
the Holiday Inn where the majority of participants rejected and condemned the process
saying it was not people oriented. The parliamentary committee was told clearly that there
were too many gaps in the NPRC Bill and therefore the establishment of the Commission was
not accepted.
MDC-T seemed to have awakened and gaining ground as evidenced by its increased number
of
meetings
which
were
attended
by
large
numbers.
Highlights:
On 9 April 2016, at a meeting at the Small City Hall in Bulawayo Central
constituency, one, Max Mnkandla, and other ZimPF members were complaining that
Jabulani Sibanda should not be part of the party’s leadership structures in Bulawayo.
On 14 April 2016, in central Bulawayo Hlengiwe Sibanda of Zanu-PF threatened to
beat up Regina Dube of Mthwakazi Party for criticising the Zanu-PF government over
the eviction of vendors from the city centre. Both women are vendors. They were
restrained from exchanging blows by other vendors.
On 21 April 2016, war veterans in wards 10 and 11 in Entumbane/ Emakhandeni
traded insults at their meeting at the war veterans offices as some were openly anti
President Mugabe and others were in support of him. The two opposing groups came
close to exchanging blows.
Harare
During the period under review not many incidents were recorded from Harare Metropolitan
province mainly because of the harsh economic environment that has forced people to focus
their energies on activities that generate income. However, in some constituencies such as
Glen View South there has been a lot of political activities taking place as the politicians are
racing to win the people from cell level. Zanu-PF is sending youths to write down the names
in every household promising to give them some food stuffs and to support youths' income
generating initiatives such as quail birds farming projects. They promised to give each youth
100 quail birds for a start and by so doing people whose names have been registered by the
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