How to participate in governing our nation

The only way to influence our political space is to take ownership of it, participate in its design and continue engagement in its ideological realignment; it is to never pass the opportunities to shape the political environment and to not leave it to someone else to determine what is or what is not reflective of us. What happens if they too decide to leave that to us?

When we abdicate our individual responsibilities and leave critical socio-political spaces as the responsibility of unidentified others, abandonment and marginalisation of communities results as more and more citizens become indifferent to local issues that matter leaving the few willing individuals to capitalise and politics becoming less and less representative of communities.

Matabeleland citizens must turn participating in how they are governed into a right and expectation, not an exception. The danger that arises from citizen non-participation in politics is the incidental promotion and entrenchment of authoritarian methods; this is when those who invest more resources in politics and politicians with predatory instincts enjoy free rein and disproportionate access to opportunities for influencing the politics turn the space into their ‘plaything’ and start to dictate rules of engagement.

Representative politics only becomes so when all citizens show unrelenting commitment to engagement and participation in all processes. If you do not have time for politics, a surprise awaits, politics will take even greater interest in you; it will invade, occupy and control your spaces of interaction and marginalise you.

We are not about to give up; we want to be the change we want to stop the constriction of the political universe of the average person and put breaks on the expansion of the elite’s political scope. This is a parallel universe of dark forces whose core focus is the withdrawal of opportunities from poor communities while extending favour to privileged individuals.

Everyone has the right and opportunity to participate in governing our nation; everyone must grab that opportunity, so decisions and policies are representative of every community in our society.

It is not just about showing up but changing lives. The processes must be meaningful, and goal orientated.

Transparent, high quality citizen engagement and participation helps to involve more people in political decisions that consider their views and ideas thereby increasing the chances of these decisions being accepted. It creates trust and promotes the integrity of these political processes and reinforces a sense of community.

Matabeleland public must continue to consider effective ways of participating in politics, and there are many ways in which residents can participate including the following:

• Information gathering from a wide range of resources including from the legacy media and from independent online content creators and judging its accuracy
• participate in local, regional, and national elections
• become an electoral observer
• informing and encouraging others to vote a certain way
• signing a petition
• writing letters to elected representatives
• contributing money to a party or candidate
• attending public consultations/ forums and workshops for an open dialogue between citizens and decision-makers
• watch parliamentary debates to keep up to date with local and national discourse
• campaigning for a candidate
• lobbying for laws that are of special interest
• submitting proposals
• demonstrating through marches, boycotts, sit-ins, or other forms of protest
• stand as a candidate
• volunteer for a civil society organisation
• disobeying unjust laws

Previously, we have highlighted the importance of quality and inclusivity of political engagement and participation. We must look at creating safe and objective spaces for citizens and civil society organisations to voice their opinions. This obviously raises consideration of “who to bring in”, “for what purpose” and “at what level”.

Due diligence is thus required to ensure that our social and political processes do not only do what they say they stand for, but they are also reflective of the community.

It is essential that all debates are representative of communities they claim to speak on behalf hence it is not only how many people attend that would make the participation of citizens to be sufficiently representative, but also who participates in these processes. This raises the spectre for equal access, because not everyone is well-informed about political processes and legal technicalities; intentional effort must be made to explain these to the citizens. This means an extension of appropriate tools to the people so that they understand the content of the debates and transparency of each stage of the decision-making process.

We must emphasise that processes need to be responsive to community needs, and civil society can be an effective vehicle through which citizens’ views are fed back to the decision-making process.

Justice driven spaces are essential to citizens of Matabeleland. Ending privilege and extending access to equal opportunities for citizens to influence politics and how they are governed must be a priority. Intentional efforts must be taken to create a culture of citizen engagement and participation in political processes so that the political design is truly representative of communities.