Chegutu mayoral nominations peaceful but full of surprises

By Tererai Karimakwenda
03 February 2006

The nomination court for the upcoming Chegutu mayoral election was held on Friday in an environment that was described as peaceful but also full of surprise. Our contact in Chegutu was the former opposition councillor for ward 6, Cephus Magaso, and he reported that both factions of the divided MDC submitted candidates. But only the incumbent mayor Francis Dhlakama, who is aligned with MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai, registered successfully. The candidate representing the pro-senate camp was turned down for reasons we were not able to confirm before this broadcast.

In another surprising turn of events Magaso said there was tension on the ZANU-PF side because the party had 3 candidates hoping to join the mayoral race, and each had threatened to cross party lines and support the MDC if they failed to register themselves. Magaso did not know why such animosity existed between the ZANU-PF candidates, but in the end only one of them was registered.

The popular current mayor of Chegutu, Francis Dhlakama, told there has been an environment of fear and intimidation and that he had struggled to find people brave enough to put their names behind his nomination. Magaso alleged on Friday that the pro-senate camp, led by vice president Gibson Sibanda, had tried to entice Dhlakama to join them then threatened the mayor when he refused. Magaso also accused the pro-senate camp of de-campaigning Dhlakama in the Chegutu area in the weeks before Friday’s nominations. We were not able to reach pro-senate officials for comment on these allegations but we will continue to try.

Meanwhile we applaud the residents of Chegutu for practicing democracy without violence. Previous Chegutu nominations and elections have been marred by a lot of violence. We hope the election in March is just as peaceful.