By Elizabeth Sitotombe

ZIMBABWE’S engagement and re-engagement efforts are now paying dividends. There is growing confidence in Zimbabwe as it makes headway in strengthening ties with the international community, while significant progress has been made in key sectors such as mining, agriculture and infrastructure development. In brief, the Government is committed to leaving no-one and no place behind.
However, there is a fly in the ointment — or flies in the ointment — bent on sabotaging Government efforts by spreading cheap lies and sowing seeds of discord for cheap political mileage and the proverbial 30 pieces of silver. When people fail to learn from their past errors, those errors turn into bad habits.
Job Sikhala, chairperson of the newly formed National Democratic Working Group (NDWG), is one such character who needs political hygiene.
He rubbishes his country at every opportunity. Undoubtedly, Sikhala seeks to derail the new positive stance the West is taking on Zimbabwe by spreading malicious untruths about the Government of Zimbabwe.
While in Geneva, Switzerland, on May 15, Sikhala addressed a UN Human Rights platform and there, on an international podium, he chose to intentionally spread falsehoods about the Government of Zimbabwe.
He accused the Second Republic of political ‘‘victimisation’’ and ‘‘corruption’’.
The former CCC chairman claimed the regime feared his candidature in the 2023 elections and thus had him arrested to keep him away from the ballot box! Sikhala concluded his ramblings by threatening that the NDWG would engage the powers-that-be in ‘national clashes’
(whatever that means) and pleaded for the West’s support.
On his X handle, Sikhala posted: “I’ve secured enough financial resources to fight the Mnangagwa regime to its knees, no retreat, no surrender, I’ll not relent, my colleagues have pledged their resolute financial support to the cause, let’s roll up our sleeves and get it done, aluta con-tinúa, Mnangagwa must fall.”
What our ‘learned’ lawyer keeps forget-ting that his motor mouth always gets him on the wrong side of the law.
This ‘convenient amnesia’ belies his ig-norance of the law.
The law is quite clear on foreign funding for political parties through the Political Parties (Finance) Act which prohibits funding of local political parties by for-eigners and foreign entities.
The Act forbids political parties from so-liciting or receiving funding from foreign sources and provides for stiff penalties, including disqualification for those violat-ing the law.
“No political party, member of a polit-ical party or candidate shall accept any foreign donation, whether directly from the donor or indirectly through a third person,” said then Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa.
The prevailing peace that Sikhala found after his stint in pre-trial detention is the same peace that will prevail.
Remember these same opposition and civil society organisations are notorious for slinking to the West to ‘cry wolf’!
All they are after is the West’s filthy lucre.

Sikhala’s shenanigans are nothing more than a nefarious attempt to resuscitate a failed political career while pocketing a few pieces of silver from some of the coun-try’s detractors.
Sikhala would go on to expose further engagements on his social media account: “After the presentation of our speeches, the former Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls, invited me for a tete-a-tete conversation on the human rights question in Zimbabwe and whether it is true that l suffered 595 days of pre-trial incarceration.

He couldn’t believe that in the world of today, a person can be thrown in prison for such a long time without being taken to trial.”

Zimbabwe’s Patriot Act criminalises unauthorised engagement in foreign countries while damaging the sovereignty and national interest of the Government of Zimbabwe.
It does not stifle democracy; neither is it an abuse of human rights as quislings would like to put it.
Zimbabwe has been at the centre of abuse from such like-minded individuals for a long time.
Only recently, the one-time CCC spokesperson and former Mount Pleasant MP, Fadzayi Mahere, used another human rights indaba to tarnish the Government’s good image. Like Job Sikhala, she was not contrite.

For the benefit of the country’s detrac-
tors, both at home and abroad, the Patriot Act is not unique to Zimbabwe. History tells us that the US passed the Logan Act in 1799 to stop any individual from communicating with a foreign government without the White House’s permission.
Reads part of the Act: “. . . any citizen of the United States, wherever he maybe, who, without authority of the United States, directly or indirectly commenc-es or carries on any correspondence or intercourse with any foreign government or any officer or agent thereof, in relation

to any disputes or controversies with the United States shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both”
Australia and the UK have similar Acts. Speaking at the burial of national hero Ezekiel Chaunoita at the National Heroes Acre last week, President Emmerson Mnangagwa berated rogue elements work-ing towards derailing the nation’s develop-ment trajectory.
“Let us stay on this path, working together in unity and common pur-pose. Rogue and retrogressive elements undermining our broad, people-centered policies will continue to be exposed as our revolution advances. Forward ever, back

ward never,” the President said.
Unpacking Job Sikhala
A former Member of Parliament for Ze-ngeza West, Job Sikhala has been arrested no less than 60 times for various political offences. Born in 1972, in Gutu, his flair for violence has always made him stand out among other opposition political party members. It was this knack for violence that brought him together with the likes of the late MDC activists Learnmore Jongwe while at the University of Zimbabwe where he led demonstrations against the admin-istration. In 2000, he became a Member of Parliament for St Mary’s. True to form, he relived his UZ days by leading rowdy youths who torched a bus in Chitungwiza.
He would, at one point, form a party, the MDC-99, after a fallout with his former bosses, naming it after the year in which the Movement for Democratic Change was formed. In 2014, he was arrested on allegations of plotting to kill the then Pres-ident of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.

In 2019, he was charged with subversion after threatening to overthrow President Mnangagwa. In 2020, he was charged with incitement to commit public violence. He would post video clips urging the masses to participate in public demonstra-tions that had the potential to cause public violence among Zimbabweans.
In 2020, he instigated violence in Nyatsime after he threatened to avenge the death of Moreblessing Ali, follwing a lovers’ tiff, a death he chose to politicise, leading to clashes which left several hous-es and vehicles damaged.

The courts described him as a habitual offender. Sikhala chose to call his pre-tri-al incarceration political persecution. But this was not political persecution
by any stretch of the imagination. Even his former boss in the now rudderless CCC, Nelson Chamisa had had enough of Sikhala whom he considered a liability to the party. No wonder he threw him under the bus.
Soon after his discharge, Sikhala launched a new political movement, the National Democratic Working Group (NDWG), which, no doubt, is destined for the dustbin just like the ill-fated MDC-99.

Meanwhile, Starman Chamisa, the for-mer Mbare legislator, who is related to the former CCC leader, was caught redhanded assaulting CCC MP for Southerton, Brid-get Nyandoro.
Nyandoro is Starman’s ex-girlfriend and they have a child together. In a video clip making the rounds on social media, Nyandoro speaks of her ordeal, expresses her thanks to an alert public who came to her rescue.

Starman Chamisa has been implicated in leading a team that was terrorising the Mupedzanhamo area, extorting daily fees from informal traders.
Violence is in the opposition members’ DNA. And for people who aspire for high-er public office, and even in the eyes of the general public, such conduct is unaccept-able.