The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) has urged chiefs to uphold constitutionalism and stay away from politics.
Speaking during a pre-election workshop for political parties and other stakeholders held at a hotel in Bulawayo on Tuesday, ZHRC executive secretary Delis Mazambani said chiefs’ mandate is fostering development and resolving disputes among their subjects.
The Southern Eye reported that Mazambani reiterated that the country’s Constitution forbade traditional leaders from being members of a political party. Said Mazambani:
Section 282 of the Constitution states that traditional leaders who include chiefs, village heads and headmen have several functions that include facilitating development and resolving disputes in their communities in accordance with customary law.
The Constitution bars traditional leaders from being members of any political party or participating in any way in partisan politics, acting in a partisan manner, or furthering the interests of any political party or cause.
The Constitution states that chiefs must be apolitical, and “must not in any way participate in partisan politics, act in a partisan manner, further the interests of any political party or cause or violate the fundamental rights and freedoms of any person”.
In 2020, the Election Resource Center approached the High Court in a bid to see the president of the Zimbabwe Chiefs Council Fortune Charumbira punished for defying a court order that ordered him to issue an apology in 2017 after he was quoted urging all chiefs to rally behind ZANU PF in the elections that were going to take place the following year.
Chief Charumbira refused to apologise prompting the ERC to approach the court again.
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