Residents associations under the banner of the Residents’ Association Coalition for Electoral Reforms (RACER) delivered a petition to Parliament demanding many things including powers to recall representatives.
The residents are also requesting, “the Minister (of Local Government) to come and explain measures taken to empower communities to have the capacity to demand quality services from elected councillors” as provided in the devolution and decentralisation policy of 2020. RACER said:
Enact enabling legislation which will operationalize section 129(k) read together with Section 278 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe with provisions which allow residents to participate in the recall process where political parties initiate the recall and residents endorse the recall.
The organisation added that the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) should also table and share the costs of by-elections that emanated from the recalls between 2020 and 2022.
The massive recalls were instigated by the Douglas Mwonzora-led MDC-T.
RACER’s petition comes at a time when Mwonzora and MDC-T have recently recalled 6 councillors in Binga Rural District Council and 3 councillors in Gweru City Council.
These are only the latest in a long list of recalled councillors that now exceeds 100.
The recalls have led to repeated by-elections in various local authorities and have seriously undermined service delivery.