the risk of political instability, particularly in countries where youth unemployment, as well as social
inequalities and corruption are high3.
In July the Harare City Council with the assistance of officials from the Ministry of Local Government,
Public Works and National Housing started demolishing homes in Glen Norah and Warren Park
suburbs of Harare. More that twenty-five (25) houses were demolished in Warren Park and eleven
(11) houses were demolished in Glen Norah suburb. The City Council claimed that the houses were
illegally built on municipal land. Affected families who spoke to ZPP indicated that most of those
who had their houses demolished were allocated the houses through cooperatives run by Zanu PF
officials. The house owners had been duly paying subscriptions to the cooperatives and they feel
aggrieved to lose their houses in this manner. Some of the cooperatives represent a typical case of
predation in which corrupt party officials corral resources at the expense of the poor. The
demolitions were conducted in the absence of court orders thereby infringing the owners’ rights to
constitutionally guaranteed protections from arbitrary evictions and unlawful administrative
conduct.
A trend observed in July was the tendency of Zanu PF officials to force people in communities and at
schools to contribute towards the Heroes day celebrations (Heroes Day is a day to celebrate and
commemorate the role played by those who fought for the liberation of Zimbabwe).
Inter party political conflict is still rife across the country and as this report will show, the majority of
the conflict is at lower party structures. In the majority of the reported cases, opposition MDC-T
supporters are harassed and intimidated at community level. Most of the harassment occurs at
community meetings where people are forced to attend and chant Zanu PF slogans. Intra party
conflict is still pervasive across the major political parties. Within the MDC-T tensions are still high as
the party is still haunted by the Renewals (the Renewals are the MDC-T members who split from the
party to form a splinter party, MDC Renewal which is led by the former MDC-T Secretary General
Tendai Biti). In Zanu PF, the party is struggling with mistrust and divisions brought about by the
“gamatox” faction (gamatox is a derogatory name for the factional allegedly sympathetic to
disposed former Vice President Joice Mujuru).
The by-elections across various constituencies have kept the country in a perpetual election mode.
This election mode is unfortunately characterized by the intimidation and harassment of voters. In
most reported cases some traditional leaders like headmen seem to be acting in tandem with ruling
Zanu PF to entice or in some cases force voters to vote for the ruling party. For instance in the Mudzi
West by-election held on 24 July 2015, voters were threatened by headmen and forced to queue in
alphabetical order on Election Day. The voters also had their fingers inspected by the headmen to
confirm if they had indeed voted. In the aftermath of the Hurungwe Westby-election the local Chief,
Chief Nyamhunga continues to harass headmen and villagers accused of supporting the losing
candidate and former Zanu PF Provincial Chair, Temba Mliswa. Two headmen in Hurungwe West
were removed from their positions by the Chief for allegedly supporting Mliswa.
While the constitution which is the supreme law of the land s in Chapter 15 subsection 281(2( a)
states that traditional leaders must not be members of any political party or in any way participate in
partisan politics, it is discouraging to note that the constitution is deliberately being violated.
Speaking at a meeting in Masvingo responding to calls for traditional leaders to act according to their
constitutional mandate Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa had this to say, “We just inserted this
clause for convenience’s sake but in actual fact a real traditional leader should not forget that there
3
See Azeng, T. F. & Yogo, T. U. 2013. “Youth Unemployment and Political Instability in Selected Developing
Countries.” Working Paper Series, Nº171, May 2013, Tunis: African Development Bank
4