Some Zimbabweans believe that the recalls within the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party have primarily impacted the expelled individuals rather than seriously affecting service delivery.
This emerged on Monday during the “This Morning on Asakhe” show on X when citizens were discussing the impact of recalls and by-elections on laws and service delivery.
Following last year’s harmonised elections, Sengezo Tshabangu recalled several elected officials in the CCC, including Members of Parliament and councillors.
To replace the vacancies, Zimbabwe held by-elections on December 9 last year, and another by-election is set to be held on February 3.
Speaking during the X-space, a participant Ndawo Khumalo, however, said the recalls, both in council and parliament, only affect the affected individuals as they have less impact on the general citizens. Khumalo said it is unfortunate that in Zimbabwe, politics has become more of a career than a side thing that one has to do in the interest of developing the country and the communities.
“They don’t impact the communities because the parliament itself has failed to deliver over the past 44 years. The council as well has failed to deliver. There was a time, rather the previous election term that we are coming from, for instance, Bulawayo was run by an opposition, and there is nothing new that came or nothing that we can write home about to say they ran the council. We had improvements in ABCD. We would elect these guys into offices, but they would not be able to challenge ZANU-PF to give them funds if they don’t have funds.
“We have politicians that are more career politicians who go into offices; they are not able to challenge the status quo. The reality is that these guys are going in to benefit themselves and their families, and as communities, we remain unchanged,” he said.
“It serves us no point to have vibrant speakers in parliament, for instance, the likes of Mahere, Ostallos, and such characters. They will go in and debate issues, but when it comes to the implementation of what they would have debated, nothing will change. As long as the masses are relying on political parties, our situation as Zimbabweans will never change.”
Meanwhile, another participant, Philip Sibanda, said we can’t continue having individuals recalled.
“The problem we have with our opposition CCC is they are not showing us the direction of what they are doing. Why can’t they come out and pull everyone out of parliament and start afresh for 2028? We can’t continue like this. We can’t continue doing this where individuals are being removed and tomorrow they campaign again. My advice is to go and restructure and start afresh because there is no direction,” said Sibanda.
In addition, another participant, Bernard, said the recalls are not necessarily affecting service delivery.
“Indirectly, you can say that the money which is being allocated to these by-elections affects one of the budgets or one of the service deliveries, thus indirectly but directly there is no difference,” he said.
