Candidates vying for the Nkulumane parliamentary seat laid bare the fundamental fault in Zimbabwe’s urban politics after the Zanu PF candidate argued he is best positioned to deliver development, insisting only someone aligned to the ruling party can unlock progress, which independent contenders swiftly dismissed as a flawed narrative that overlooks the systemic centralisation designed to weaken opposition-led councils. The exchanges emerged during a community meeting where aspiring legislators were asked to say out what they had done and what they could realistically do for Nkulumane. The Zanu PF candidate, Freedom Murechu championed a model of development-through-access and leveraging connection to the ruling party to extract resources while the independent candidates such as Rodney Jele advocated for a model of devolved governance, where development is planned and executed locally, free from partisan manipulation from Harare.
The Zanu PF candidate argued opposition-led urban councils had failed Bulawayo and were responsible for the city’s deterioration over the past two decades. He said aligning Nkulumane with the ruling Zanu PF would facilitate development because the national government, including President Emmerson Mnangagwa, is controlled by Zanu PF. “Zanu is in opposition in Bulawayo province.
The opposition has been in power for two decades now. In 2000 when the opposition came over that’s when we started seeing the city deteriorating,” he said. Murechu claimed Zanu PF had long-term development plans that were discarded after the opposition took control of the city’s governance.
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“Zanu council had a vision of growing the population and said short-term let’s drill boreholes, long-term, do Gwayi-Shangani, but Zanu was voted out,” he said, noting the government has been accused of neglect when water shortages worsened. Murechu also questioned the need to build new dams, saying residents will shoulder that burden after Mbuso Fuzwayo, one of the independent candidates, had proposed that. The Zanu PF hopeful cited developments in Pelandaba–Tshabalala and Cowdray Park, attributing them to by-elections that returned the constituencies to Zanu PF.
“We took control in Pelandaba–Tshabalala and Cowdray Park after by-elections and a lot is happening now there, but the development is seen as a drop in the ocean because our cities and towns have deteriorated a lot. Look at what Mthuli Ncube (finance minister who ran for the seat but was beaten in the 2023 election) did in Cowdray Park, look at the roads, he has continued.” Murechu said he had personally financed some community initiatives.
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