By Mcdonald Lewanika| Almost a decade ago, I visited a friend of mine who had just left the employ of a big development agency. During the course of that visit, his phone did not ring once. The absence of phone calls, given his profile and past encounters with him where a minute would hardly pass without a message coming in or call disrupting our conversation, struck me as odd. I made a comment about this observation, to which he remarked, “ahh, my phone barely rings these days. That is what happens when one leaves positions of influence, and people think you can’t give them anything anymore.”
The friend in question was Jacob Mafume, now Mayor of Harare, who was arrested on 15 December 2020 for the second time in a month. Jacob spent this last Christmas remanded in custody over allegations of abusing his office, and witness tampering, and continues to be remanded in custody. Between the time we had the referenced conversation and now, Jacob went on to become a key advisor to Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, a leading member of the Peoples Democratic Party, Spokesperson and secretary for elections of the Movement for Democratic Change-Alliance, councillor for Mt Pleasant, ward 17, and in October 2020, Mayor of Harare. I am fairly certain that Jacob did not have a shortage of phone calls during this illustrious political career and rise, except from me. Although Jacob was my friend, predecessor at a former workplace, and also my lawyer, he would usually ask why I wasn’t calling, and my retort would be “mukoma, makawandirwa.”
As Jacob sits in remand prison, unwell – at risk of contracting COVID19 and fighting charges that are more political than they are substantive, the silence from his political allies and well-meaning citizens, in general, has, to me, been deafening. It reminded me of that time ten years ago when his phone didn’t ring. Granted, some have begun to contest his incarceration, but the main feature from where I am has largely been silence, including from me.
The “reasons” for the “silence” are varied. For some, Jacob’s career as a non-executive but influential Mayor of the capital city seems finished. As a result, he cannot do anything for them, so why bother. In fact, others see this as a chance for their ascendency or to have a more pliant and corruptible mayor who takes care of their interests. Some residents of Harare and citizens in general believe, rightly so that Jacob is a politician, and past form has shown that political victimisation comes with the territory. For these people, there is nothing to see here because people who make a deliberate choice to contest against ZANU-PF have made their bed and have to lie on the sheets of politically motivated victimisation, incarceration, and all manner of abuse. For those who belong to ZANU-PF and other political parties, there is nothing to say because Jacob is an example to other political competitors of the price of “political” intransigence and resisting the ZANU-PF political centre’s control of urban local councils, especially Harare, despite failing to secure a mandate to do so from the residents of Harare. And yet for others, Jacob has been charged with a criminal offense, abused his office, and god forbid they be caught up in that mess.
The preceding “reasons” expose a very selfish personal political economy calculus that has gripped civil and political society in Zimbabwe. It is an ill-tempered spirit that makes cost-benefit analysis in instances where principles must be defended and calculations around personal aggrandisement, subordinated.
The “reasons” raise questions around the selective application of the law and the provision of solidarity based on a warped sense of allocating deserving and underserving activists dependent on who they are and whether or not we identify them as ordinary citizens or political actors. Jacob’s pre-trial long incarceration is an aberration. It is abhorrent and should be castigated by all who believe that the scales of the Libra must always be even. The fundamental principle of innocent till proven guilty has been discarded, and Jacob is effectively serving a jail term before he has been tried by a competent court. As was on display in the first week of January 2021, Zimbabwe’s courts and justice system can be efficient. One only has to look at the fast-track trial of DJs Fantan and Levels to see the deliberate and political nature of pre-trial long incarcerations for perceived opponents of the government.
In my opinion, Jacob Mafume’s arrest in November and current long incarceration is the latest in a series of arrests and suspensions of councilors at the Harare City Council which have been used as an indicator of deep-rooted corruption at the city council. But the arrests also indicate the weaponization of public contempt for corruption and poor service delivery and its use to purge local councils of key opposition officers and organisers.
There is a clear political play at controlling Harare City Council by the central state using various legal and political machinations. These include creating the impression of popular support for removing the council as seen through letters to the Minister of Local Government, Public Works and National Housing, from shadowy networks like the Zimbabwe Revolutionary and Patriotic Youth Network (ZIRAPAYON). They also include the patently undemocratic recalls of MPs and councilors by parties they do not belong to, and an obsession with and constant tweets on Harare’s state of affairs from the Government’s spokesperson.
Whether Jacob is guilty or innocent of the charges laid against him, it is clear to me that his long incarceration is part of the corrosive subversion of electoral democracy that has been at play since the recalls of MDC-Alliance Members of Parliament and Councillors by the MDC-T. Unfortunately, Jacob’s fate and that of the city of Harare’s council lie not in objective assessments of wrongdoing, a fair trial, and the interests of residents and voters in Harare but on the negative aspects of Realpolitik aimed at sectoral and factional political aggrandizement.
I worry about Jacob the friend, brother, lawyer, husband, and father. He is all these things, but he is also the mayor of Harare and a sitting member of the leading opposition party’s national executive. His incarceration is act two or three in a recurring political drama that, at the City of Harare, claimed the scalp of Mayor Herbert Gomba and at least 11 other Councillors. I worry about my friend, but the opposition must be more worried about this relentless attack on their ranks and clear attempt to render them dysfunctional and possibly non-existent by 2023.
As I worry about my friend, citizens must worry about how their will is being disrespected as their elected representatives are sent packing leaving them either with no representation or representatives forced on them by parties, they rejected at the election in 2018. Democrats must worry about the impact that this politically motivated incarceration and other forms of weeding out elected representatives has on electoral accountability and attendant criminalisation of opposition.
Politicians must worry about the culture that they are perpetuating of subversion and undemocratic means of gaining political control.
If it is paying attention, the nation must be worried. But for now, I wish strength to the Mayor of Harare and councilor for Ward 17. I pray that he is freed soon and is able to re-join his loving wife and children to provide comfort during these trying times amidst a pandemic.