Harare | Thursday
RIOT police were deployed in force in the Zimbabwe capital on Wednesday to prevent pro-democracy demonstrators staging a protest march against proposed changes to Zimbabwe’s electoral laws.
The armed police fanned out across the city centre to disperse all persons gathered in groups, thus preventing demonstrators from mobilising.
Despite the crackdown, a small group of protestors managed to gather near the parliamentary buildings but beat a hasty retreat when a truckload of riot police drove into the main shopping mall where they had convened.
The march had been called by the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), a broad-based coalition of civic groups and opposition political parties.
The demonstrators had planned to march on parliament to block the country’s lawmakers from entering the building to debate a motion to amend electoral laws.
But parliament sat and legislators went about their business as usual. The proposed electoral amendments had, however, not been tabled by late afternoon.
On Tuesday, a group of 100 war veterans and pro-government supporters marched on parliament undisturbed.
They were protesting the death of one of their colleagues they believe was killed by opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) activists.
“There is no democracy in this country,” one NCA official, who asked not to be named, said after riot police had sent the group of protestors scurrying among crowds of lunch-time shoppers.
The proposed amendments will bar Zimbabweans living abroad — estimated to be as many as more than three million — from voting in next year’s presidential elections.
The civic group also opposes the government’s decision, made earlier this month, to ban foreign and independent election monitors from observing the vote. – AFP