There is no democracy to talk about in Zimbabwe and the country still has a long way to go before it can attain it, Bulawayo Proportional Representation legislator, Jasmine Toffa, has said.
Her remarks come hard on the heels of her brutal attack Monday while on a campaign mission in Insiza by suspected ZANU-PF members.
Toffa and other Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) members were in Insiza’s Ward 4 campaigning for their party’s candidate, Augustine Gumede in Saturday’s by-elections when they were attacked.
The assailants who attacked them using sticks, logs, fists, and stones are believed to be the same group that attacked other CCC supporters in Matobo on Sunday.
Toffa said she never expected to be dehumanised the way she was, lamenting the lack of rule of law in the country.
“They asked who I am and I said I am Honourable Toffa and they said Honourable Toffa from where?” she told CITE.
“They then took logs and hit me. One of them made a karate pose and hit me straight in the face. A fully-grown man! Two women were carrying logs with which they assaulted me. One of them tried to frighten me as if I were a child and I asked: ‘Are you sure of what you are doing? They said, we don’t want anybody else here (except for ZANU-PF leaders) and I said why then did you allow them to go to Nomination Court? Why did you allow them (voters) to register? Why didn’t you simply declare that you wanted a ZANU-PF person? It was just terrible.”
She lamented the lack of rule of law in the country.
“There is clearly no rule of law, clearly the constitution is just a piece of paper that is used to the ruling party’s advantage,” she decried.
“It is not applied fairly. It’s not something that anybody can rely on. It also means that democracy is not part of our governance.”
She added: “So really we have a very long way to go, it is barbaric, the way they run things. They believe in threatening people. It’s terrible. I don’t know if we can be proud enough to say we actually have a government.”
