Pastor Evan’s moment, & supremacy of the Constitution of Zimbabwe

By Bernard Bwoni

The government has the conclusive responsibility and is accountable to the people of Zimbabwe. Their role is that of facilitating and putting into play policies, processes and systems for efficient service delivery, which are the safeguards against corruption. They require nothing short of a committed and consistent follow-through. The people of Zimbabwe have repeatedly spoken out about corruption and urged the government to tackle this degenerate economic dissipation. The government has not been deaf to the people’s outcries about corruption, they have listened but the problem is that they have just listened and very little else beyond that. This is what has continued to agitate many and hence why the Pastor’s message has been resonating with some. It is very important that the government make a drastic shift from all the rhetoric on corruption and introduce more drastic and correctional measures to curb this damaging culture that has become inbuilt and the norm in the Zimbabwe psyche. There is no value whatsoever in simply talking about corruption because the culprits will simply carry on without due care or attention even after being named and shamed. The people are agitating because they are not witnessing real consequences for those implicated or found guilty of corruption. There is no point in empty threats and high-sounding declarations that the government is going to fight corruption when the architects of corruption are left to continue with the practices. The three arms of the state, legislature, the executive and the judiciary must work in a tight-knit format to tackle corruption more effectively. If any arm of the state is compromised, then there is no point in even attempting to fight corruption.  Each arm of the arm of state must be razor-sharp in the fight against corruption and once blunted it affect the whole process. What Pastor Evan is selling to the people is nothing new but the fact that it is nothing new does not make it any less important.

The issue of the many road blocks and the constant soliciting of bribes by some police officers has been recurrent and this has caused a lot of distress and inconvenience to the many motorists in Zimbabwe. On some roads there seem to be more road blocks than street lights and it is shocking. The disproportionately high number of roadblocks is what is indeed fuelling and sustaining the corruption and frustrating the motorists. Those are the structural problems that need to be changed, yes there are instances where road blocks or police presence is necessary, but some of it has just become a police get-together to extract some money out of the public. Again, the Pastor is not saying anything new but still very important. Now one does not need to ‘shut down the whole country’ to get his way. In any part of the world as in Zimbabwe, there are appropriate channels to air grievances or to get an audience with the government. Pastor Evan has not exhausted or even started the engagement route. He has gone directly for the kill with his threats and ultimatums. The government of Zimbabwe has not closed any doors to engagement with the people who gave them the mandate with an overwhelming majority. For Pastor Evan, it has never been about engaging the government to air grievances, but something else. The movement has not engaged with the government, but rather issued threats and ultimatums. All they have done was to urge people to stay-away from work and force the government to change certain policy decisions.  The speed at which everything is happening is mesmerising and one has to play catch up all the time as events are moving at lightning speed. The Pastor posts a video on social media and the following day he expects the government to make announcements that they are “withdrawing the introduction of bond notes and that they are withdrawing statutory instrument 64:2016”. Now this is a private citizen in his own capacity who expects a whole government with an electoral mandate to drop everything so as to fit in with his demands, some which have no sound basis at all.

There are issues of integrity that the flag movement has to address and these are pertinent issues. There have been some shocking cases of manipulation and deliberate disinformation and lies to prop up the movement through deception. On Monday 11th July 2016, social network sites were awash with reports of Pastor Evan having been "abducted by alleged state agents". These reports provoked outrage and instant threats of "war against this government" from some of his social media followers, unless Pastor Evan was released immediately by his "state abductors".  It then followed that the Pastor himself posted a video denying these claims of "abduction by state agents". He confirmed that he was safe and sound and that he would be handing himself to the police on Tuesday morning. Many of his friends were not convinced by the video he posted and some went to the extent of discrediting it as a fake video. They continued to share messages of solidarity demanding his release. It was only the following morning when images of him attending Harare Central Police accompanied by his lawyers surfaced and this led many to abandon the narrative of the Pastor having been abducted by state agents. The outrage then shifted and they started asking why he was being questioned by the police for inciting violence through some of his utterances.

Pastor Evan's misguided and devious call to shut down Zimbabwe flopped this week and the week before. The organisers and followers of this movement have been employing scare tactics and manipulative strategies to get people to heed their disorganised and self-serving calls to stay away from work. There has been a proliferation of fake WhatsApp conversations being created and shared as genuine on social media for effect. There have been suspicious recordings of allegedly senior security and army officials claiming to be in support of the movement and that they are fed up with the government. Then there were fake letters claiming to be from companies such as Delta and Econet telling their employees not to come to work for the next two days of the planned stay aways. There were also fake Twitter accounts of celebrities from Beyoncé to Justin Bieber being created and claiming to be in support of the shutdown Zimbabwe campaign. Professor Jonathan Moyo had his Twitter profile cloned and a tweet created in his name claiming that he now had joined the movement and was "with the people".

The lies, the deception and forgery methods being employed to propel public agitation against the state brings into serious doubt the sincerity and integrity of Pastor Evan and his followers. The public is feeding off social media information whose authenticity and accuracy can never be guaranteed. Social media is about how instantly the message is relayed and the associated evoked emotions and reactions. Things are happening at stealth pace and the government is having to play catch up. It has now become virtually impossible to differentiate between fiction, falsehoods, fantasy and facts. The dividing lines have become irrecoverably blurred. The truth and facts have lost their meaning in this information jungle and it is now about regime change at whatever cost.

The speed at which events are happening in this manipulated public agitation clearly points to a "third" or even "fourth" force behind. The usual international media sources have been working with the blatant lies and falsehoods being peddled on social media and then printing these as the true narrative of the current situation in Zimbabwe. There is someone somewhere who is desperate to see the situation in Zimbabwe unravel and explode to levels that will be uncontrollable. These are the despicable depths of desperation linked to Pastor Evan and his movement. Whilst the citizens of Zimbabwe have genuine issues and aspirations, Pastor Evan and those behind him are using the desperation of the masses for self-serving ends. This is a clear case of social media being utilised to manipulate the masses into action and revolt against the government. It is a very irresponsible and dangerous strategy as witnessed by the deadly scenes in Turkey recently.

It is interesting to note that Pastor Evan has caught the attention of the international media organisations and he has now appealed to the "international community" to intervene in Zimbabwe and put pressure on President Mugabe. Then there is the twist and here is when things begin to be even more interesting. The speed at which the pastor is moving and the attention he is getting has invited the full wrath of the other opposition parties in Zimbabwe. The more the attention on Pastor Evan, the less on Morgan Tsvangirai or Mujuru or one of the leaders of the many political parties in Zimbabwe. Tsvangirai has been the sole face of the opposition in Zimbabwe and this new kid on the block is ruffling furthers.

Pastor Evan's charges were dropped after the Magistrate ruled that there had been a violation of the country's constitution. The supremacy of the Zimbabwe Constitution is undisputed and going by the fast-paced events at Rotten Row Courts, Zimbabwe has a solid and robust Constitution that is the supreme law of the land. The Zimbabwe constitution’s supremacy cannot be challenged in any court of law and when it is said that Zimbabwe has rule of law, here is the tangible evidence of that. This ruling in favour of Pastor Evan clearly demonstrated that the people of Zimbabwe, the three arms of government which are the legislature, the judiciary and the executive are all bound by the constitution and that nobody is above or beyond the constitution. This constitution is the fundamental law of Zimbabwe, inclusive and the express embodiment of reign and rule of law. The magistrate's decision was respected and the charges were dropped because the fundamental law of the country was violated. Supremacy and sovereignty are still paramount but the constitution is the supreme law of the land. We cherish and value a strong constitution for it serves everyone irrespective of political, religious or social standing. The Zimbabwe Constitution is a people-driven constitution, all stakeholders took active part in drawing up this fundamental law of the land, and the direct authority of the people cannot be claimed by the judiciary, executive or legislature which are all representative bodies under the constitution. We applaud this outcome because it is a constitutional victory and that document called the Zimbabwe Constitution's practical application and associated outcomes.