By Josephine Jombe| We are about a year or so away from the 2023 General Election, and there is an atmosphere of hope that we are on the cusp of history being made in Zimbabwe. The recent by-election success for the Citizens Coalition For Change (CCC) led by Nelson Chamisa and the positive response to the ongoing mass campaign to get people to register to vote show that things are moving in the right direction.

However, despite the positivity in the Zimbabwean public, there is hard to ignore evidence that the political environment remains hostile to the opposition. It seems everywhere the CCC goes to campaign, they are faced with intimidation and hostilities from the police and a range of other agent provocateurs.

While campaigning for the by elections, CCC supporters were attacked at a rally in Kwekwe by ZanuPF supporters who came disguised wearing CCC regalia. This attack resulted in the death of Mboneni Ncube, a CCC supporter. It has been reported that at least 37 CCC supporters were arrested just for campaigning for the party.

The CCC party were also banned from campaigning in Marondera and Gokwe. There are numerous other examples of the state using police and faceless agents of chaos taking the law in their hands and attacking CCC supporters dressed in yellow. It seems the colour yellow has become a red rag to a bull for these people.

No matter how pathetic these people are i.e ZRP and the dollar for hire hooligans, they represent an intention by Zanu to make it has hard as possible for the CCC to compete in the election next year; an intention to frustrate CCC supporters and the public at large; an intention to hold on to power.

We as a people need to continue drawing attention to this hostile environment and intimidation of opposition members and supporters.

The eyes of the world need to see this. The political environment is more hostile now than it was going into the 2018 general election.