There are no permanent friends in politics.
As heavy machinery tears through brick structures deemed illegal and street vendors receive ruthless ultimatums to clear city pavements, a troubling question echoes across the country.
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Why have these citizens suddenly become a nuisance? For years, their informal settlements expanded and their makeshift stalls lined urban streets without interference from authorities. Today, they are branded as lawbreakers and urban blight, treated as though they arrived overnight to disrupt civic order. The reality, however, is far more tragic. The vast majority of those targeted are ordinary, poor Zimbabweans driven not by criminal intent, but by sheer desperation.
They are parents trying to secure a roof over their children’s heads, workers striving to put food on the table, and families attempting to pay school fees in an economy that offers few formal alternatives. While their homes and stalls may technically breach municipal bylaws, these are not hardened felons defying the state. They are everyday citizens trying to survive in a harsh economic climate that remains deeply unkind to the poor. Crucially, these structures and vending spots did not mushroom out of nowhere through the sheer stubbornness of rogue land grabbers.
They were born out of politically orchestrated housing cooperatives and schemes heavily embedded within the ruling elite’s networks. For decades, land was parcelled out under the banner of revolutionary solidarity, often draped in the venerated names of national heroes like Joshua Nkomo, Leopold Takawira, and Simon Muzenda, or given nationalist titles like Takaitora Nyika. These names were deliberate, designed to give the illegal allocations an aura of legitimacy and to bind the beneficiaries directly to the political establishment. Authorities turned a blind eye as foundations were laid, walls were raised, and entire communities flourished, because allowing these developments served an immediate political purpose.
The same dynamics governed the streets. Vendors were permitted—and often encouraged—to occupy city pavements because their presence offered a captive audience for political mobilization. Party officials frequently oversaw the distribution of informal vending slots, at times directly collecting daily fees from vendors who sought protection to operate. In exchange for these concessions, many of these same citizens were drawn into advancing the self-serving agendas of the ruling elite. They were mobilized to swell crowds, disrupt opposition rallies, discourage street protests, and turn out at the ballot box. Most recently, many were deployed to public hearings surrounding Constitutional Amendment No. 3, where they flooded venues, drowned out dissenting voices, and threatened those advocating for democratic limits. Like the biblical Esau, many traded away their sacred birthright for a single meal. They gave up their right to directly elect the President, along with the power to enforce his retirement in 2028 after two terms. All of this was surrendered for immediate, transactional survival favors—symbolized by cheap hand-outs like a box with two pieces of chicken.
In doing so, they surrendered the ultimate power a citizen holds over an elected official: the accountability of the vote. When those in power no longer needed electoral validation to secure their positions, the leverage that once protected informal settlements and street stalls evaporated overnight. Now, having served their purpose, these citizens find themselves discarded without hesitation. The very authorities who once ignored building violations now dispatch bulldozers to reduce life savings, invested in brick and mortar, to piles of rubble. Vendors who were once sheltered as loyal supporters are now chased from the streets like intruders. The pain and loss unfolding across Zimbabwean towns is deeply tragic, but it carries a stark, inescapable truth. The price of surrendering one’s rights is far higher than two pieces of chicken.
The true cost was never just a piece of land without title or a temporary spot on a pavement; it was the loss of citizen leverage. This tragic episode must stand as an enduring cautionary tale for all Zimbabweans. Never allow desperation to be weaponized by politicians, and never yield fundamental rights under the guise of political loyalty. Power without accountability eventually turns on those who helped build it. When political leverage is given away, yesterday’s promises offer zero protection against today’s bulldozers.
Tendai Ruben Mbofana is a social justice advocate and writer. Please feel free to contact him on +263715667700 or mbofana.tendairuben73@gmail.com
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