For the reason that humans are fallible and not impervious to error, for their own good, those holding power ought to be mistrusted and be prevented from holding too much of it. Those who govern must have just enough power to preside over the governed, and never to be allowed unconstrained power over themselves.
Contemporary Africa suffers from the colonial hangover. Post-independence African governments replaced personnel but retained the tyrannic colonial regimes. We need to set in place corrective systems that seek to counter and ameliorate the impact of despotism and the reality of human fallibility.
Matabeleland organisations do understand that policy relevance is key to winning public approval; focus of attention must be on reshaping the architecture of local politics. Matabeleland political groups and society must engineer local reforms that reflect the people and their needs; we cannot continue to be pawns in the unfolding tragedy that is mainstream politics in Zimbabwe, a tragic cultic state that has presided over a self-imposed public marginalisation from decision-making processes.
Localised transformational changes of the political space are required. We have enough experience of what unconstrained power looks and feels like; giving free reign to politicians is an assured highway to a socio-political graveyard.
Creating gods out of leaders has had disastrous outcomes for Africa; people tired of systemic marginalisation have gotten used to waiting for leaders to come up with answers to socioeconomic and political ills.
However, these are blind leaders who hardly consult citizens to identify needs, work out viable processes, and solutions. To suggest that ‘society’ can simply ‘arrange’ better outcomes somehow, without specifying the processes, without counting the costs, is to ignore the tragic outcomes of post-colonial African politics including mainstream politics of Zimbabwe.
It must be understood by both the public and the socio-political leadership that active participation of the ordinary Matabele men and women must not be relegated to an option but form the foundation in shaping politics on the ground. A healthy political space must be crafted where those mandated by the public to perform specific roles do so without fear, and the space is inclusive for it to be genuinely representative.
Equally important are safeguards around the distribution of power. It is a political reality that the minute too much power is concentrated in any one place or individual, trouble brews as that power tends to get abused. We have the responsibility to monitor institutional power transactions to prevent government from either devolving into an autocratic tyranny or autocratic mob mentality.
A strong distrust for centralised power must therefore inform our views of a future framework of government. We need a government with checks and balances to prevent any branch of the government from becoming too powerful.
Where accountability is perceived as essential, democracy remains the best form of government with its strong founding principle of protecting institutions and individuals from undue access to excessive power and control. The principle acknowledges that people are not impervious to error, and all human-led institutions require checks and balances.
‘Checks’ and ‘balances’ refer to those mechanisms which distribute power throughout a political system – preventing any one institution or individual from exercising total control.
The two words ‘checks’ and ‘balances’ are typically used together but refer to subtly different (though overlapping) things. Checks are the mechanisms which allow political institutions to limit one another’s power by blocking, delaying or simply criticising decisions. Balances, meanwhile, ensure that a wide spectrum of views and interests are represented in the democratic process.
Herein comes pro-Matabeleland political organisations; these groups must consider it their primary obligation to create mechanisms that enable justice and fair distribution of power vertically and horizontally across government system: assert and incorporate the authority of traditional leadership, promote women participation in public life and decision-making processes, and protect minority rights in the region’s political framework and governance system.
Criticism of mainstream politics in Zimbabwe by pro-Matabeleland activists has always been on its failure to mirror the diversity of the communities in Matabeleland. The system in place is typically a centralised, unaccountable, inflexible Shonalised entity.
Decentralisation of government activities is essential in a highly diverse society like Matabeleland. The political leadership needs to place trust on the ability of local communities to make decisions about their lives and support the processes through relevant education and allocation of appropriate resources.
There is a societal duty to remove despotic and unaccountable political regimes that only serve those in power and their allies. Matabeleland’s objective must be to commit to upholding political democracy and its founding principle of checks and balances; all of society – traditional leadership, religious institutions, academia, the media, and NGOs – must participate in the system of checks and balances and vow to uphold it even when it is politically uncomfortable. Devolution and decentralisation of power are paramount to local progress. The derogation of the public and its marginalisation from state decision-making processes must be confined to a pile of good history books of the bad political systems from our past.
MTHWAKAZI INDEPENDENT 