The MDC calls on Augustine Chihuri, the Police Commissioner General, to leave the police force and take up a post in politics as a Zanu PF fanatic rather than masquerade as a top public service officer expected to work for all in an inclusive, just and fair custom.
No police officer anywhere in the world would survive a day longer in public office if they display an openly partisan, discriminatory and biased view of the society s/he is employed to serve. Chihuri must simply resign and leave Zimbabweans with a professional and uncontaminated force that guarantees the people peace and security while executing their Constitutional mandate.

 As Zimbabweans, a people already under siege from Zanu PF’s unremitting calls for a general election -- interspersed with poorly composed and highly divisive campaign jingles currently dominating state radio and television programmes – we were horrified by Chihuri’s weekend statements in which he derided free and fair elections as a form of national expression in a democracy. “This country came through blood and the barrel of the gun and it can never be re-colonised through a simple pen, which costs as little as five cents,” Chihuri told junior officers, back from a trip he sponsored to the national liberation shrines in Mozambique.

Most police officers are clear that they work for the people; for their country; and respect the law. Clearly Chihuri’s statements do not reflect this.
Chihuri’s careless utterances fly in the face of Zanu PF’s calls for an election next year. They dampen the people’s confidence in the entire police force at a time when the majority of the senior police officers approached leaders in the Inclusive Government to rescue them from Chihuri’s grip in order to perform their duties as professionals.

The MDC can hardly believe that Chihuri could publicly force his subordinates to ignore the people’s democratic voice, disrespect a free and fair election and instead, encourage them to flout the law. Chihuri’s utterances reveal a desperate trend inside Zanu PF that without force the party has no chance of winning an election.  Last week the Defence minister, Emmerson Mnangagwa made similar statements in Kwekwe. Given the stance taken by Chihuri and members of the Zanu PF military junta that backs Zanu PF, what guarantee exists for a free and fair election in 2011? Is Zanu PF serious when they talk of a credible election under the circumstances?

A decade of misery, poverty, famine, murders and deaths arising from electoral disputes must by now have taught Zanu PF that violence and force denote an unpatriotic approach to governance and civil order. It appears they have learnt nothing and are ready to continue to kill in order to retain power.

The MDC’s invariable position remains clear. The party is not, and has never been, scared of an election. What President Morgan Tsvangirai and the party maintain is that a legitimate plebiscite must be free of blood and chaos; a credible election must meet universal norms and standards, must unite the people, and must be free and fair. Anything else would be a waste of time, life and precious human resources. The nation is fully behind the MDC on this non-negotiable demand.

By showing his disdain for a free and fair election, Chihuri was merely echoing Zanu PF’s 2008 stated position that the pen cannot decide Zimbabwe’s destiny. For the avoidance of doubt, it has never been the pen, as a writing instrument, that makes such a decision. It is the people, the holders of the pen, who have long turned backs on Zanu PF and Chihuri’s primitive political practices of dictatorship and tyranny as modern-day modes of governance.
In the light of the above, the MDC calls on the nation, SADC and the AU to take note of the latest Zanu PF position as enunciated by Chihuri affirming violence, and not the ballot, as their main campaign tool should Mugabe foist an election on the nation.

That position vindicates the MDC’s desire for comprehensive security sector reform before the party participates in any future national elections. Under these reforms, the role of security forces must be clearly defined to enable Zimbabweans to exercise their generic right of freedom of expression -- with their open hearts and minds -- and using the pen as an indispensable tool. In particular the Police Act – the foundation stone of the ZRP – should be revisited and restored as the guide to policing and restoration of the organisation as apolitical and professional.  No matter how hard Mugabe and Zanu PF or the military junta may try to rape or to force themselves onto the nation, the dice has already been cast. They are certainly on their way out.

Together, united, winning, ready for real change!