Golden Jubilee For Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference
given up and the country was on a free fall. After the army embarked on a project
code named' restore legacy'in 2017 the country had an election on the 31st July,
2018. The election was not as smooth as many expected it to be. The good part is
that the one President who had been in power for 38 years did not appear on the
ballot papers. This alone brought relief to many people. Before the July
elections there seemed to have been relative peace and acceptance of one
another in the whole country. The 2018 election was an election with a
difference.
b. The work before the office
People seem to be very sad after the 31st July 2018 elections. The wait and see
attitude which was there before the elections is no more and reality is now
sinking in people's minds that all the promises made before elections were just
but empty promises.The country for some time had been divided into two if not
three clear distinct groups. The ruling ZANU PF still divided into two groups
that is the Lacoste team and the G40 that is not as visible as it used to be but is
still there. The third is from the coalition of opposition parties. These three teams
are pulling the country in different directions. This can be seen as both positive
and negative at the same time. The office is trying to reconcile the MPs who lost
first in the primary elections and later in the main elections with those who won
in both primary and main elections.
The idea is to avoid a repeat of the blood shed that was experienced in 2008 and
also on the 1 st of August, 2018 and 14-16 January 2019. Almost all the MPs who
were part of the G40 have come to the office for the process of reconciliation.
Some of the G40 cabal as popularly known have joined the coalition of the
opposition parties while others have formed their party which is supported by
the former President.The reconciliation that the office is looking up to is not
going to be achieved in a day but is going to be a long process that needs patience
and skill. The office is calling for mature politics in the country where people are
free to talk about their feelings and also on the failures of those who will be
leading at any given time. The office intends to achieve this by addressing as
many stakeholders as possible some of whom are MPs, Traditional Leaders,
Partisan NGOs and Churches.
To date the office has participated in a dialogue meeting between the Head of
State and the Head of the Coaliation group. There was a stale mate where the
Head of State wanted the Head of the Coalition group to accept that he was the
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