Letter: Chiefs must be apolitical

By AMH Voices | Mar. 20, 2023 | 4 Min read

Chiefs should never interfere in the political choices of their subjects.

Dear President

YOUR Excellency, how can you sink so low to the extent of attempting to force traditional leaders to commandeer their subjects to vote for Zanu PF?

Forcing traditional leaders to order their subjects to vote for Zanu PF has been the government’s way of imposing itself on the people since the days of the late former President Robert Mugabe.

This tradition has continued under your leadership when the people of Zimbabwe had hoped democracy would prevail. The recent remarks by Chiefs Council president Chief Fortune Charumbira in the video which has gone viral in which he tells chiefs to command their subjects to vote for the ruling party Zanu PF is a violation of our Constitution.

Chiefs have been pampered with state-of-the-art cars and other items in a bid to bribe them to use whatever means they can employ to campaign for Zanu PF, but good chiefs know that they are not supposed to be used in that manner. A good example being Chief Mathema, who has come in the open and said chiefs should be apolitical as seen in the video shared on social media recently

Hats off to Chief Mathema and many other who uphold the values of chieftainship. Chiefs should never interfere in the political choices of their subjects.

Your Excellency, be a leader and do the right thing and stop using traditional leaders to campaign for you and your party. Allow Zimbabweans to exercise their constitutional right to vote for whoever they think is the rightful person to lead the country.

Don’t you feel ashamed when footage of you smiling at Charumbira as he tells chiefs to campaign for you are shared with your peers across Southern African Development Community and the African Union states, and with the international community at large?-Kennedy Kaitano

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