Bulawayo residents have been urged to vote for individuals with the capacity to develop the city and not vote on party lines.
Giving an assessment of the performance of the outgoing Bulawayo councillors, Matabeleland Institute for Human Rights (MIHR) Coordinator, Khumbulani Maphosa, said it was important for residents to vote for people with a track record for leadership instead of voting for a political party.
“When it comes to elections, we are bi-focal as a people. People just look at CCC and Zanu-PF. The people of Bulawayo are even worse. When it comes to elections, they become focused on one thing. They always look at their CCC, so we may get to that problem again. We want a council that has representatives from all political parties. Having a multi-party faceted council will enable the promotion of accountability,” Maphosa said.
“If we have members of one political party, it means that whoever is senior in that party will have their voices heard the most because if that does not happen they would be disciplined in the party. Look at CCC right now, we have not even voted but they already have candidates for mayor and deputy mayor. Is it really about the qualities of a person or party preference?”
Maphosa noted that in 2018, residents voted for party candidates based on their party preference at the national level and that affected the crop of people that they ushered into the local authority offices.
He said for this challenge to be addressed, it is important to deharmonise elections so that people’s decisions are not clouded by whom they choose at national level.
“The people of Bulawayo did not vote for the councillors. They voted for political parties. And when they were voting they were looking mainly at presidential candidates. That is why at some point there was a complaint about a councillor whom people said did not know where he came from. But the reason why they voted for him was because they wanted the political party,” he said.
“The reason why they wanted the party is because they were looking at national politics. They only got the vote on party merit not in their ability to fulfill their mandate. These are the things that make us campaign for deharmonisation so that we vote for councillors separately and national leaders separately because we are in a devolved state.”
