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Stephen Mpofu
This conversation is directed at voters trooping out to elect members of parliament, senators and councillors on July 30.

The Fourth Estate — print and electronic media — along with the Executive, the Legislature and the Judiciary make up the four pillars of society, any society, with the press helping to shape the destiny of a people and their country by disseminating information on policy development and other issues that help to shape the destiny of a country.

Repeated, impassioned pleas have been made by political leaders in this country for the press to give coverage to all political parties in the run up to the harmonised elections.

What has, however, not been stated is that both the beautiful and the ugly faces of political organisations and their leaders  should be exposed with no compromise whatsoever so that the right people are  elected to play a positive role in the social, economic and political emancipation of our motherland right through into a brave new future for all.

Yet it is no exaggeration by this pen to suggest that the various media are both embraced and loathed at the same time by those who want their positive image projected to the public while the negative side of things are kept under wraps.

But, of course, to keep its image clean the press must not pander to fake news to please some people. On the contrary, journalists are compelled by the dictates of their  profession to give preference to veracity over falsehoods whether some bigwigs like it or not.

In fact whether the weather be good, whether the weather be bad the press must tell the truth to liberate the public at large from ignorance and in the process empower the masses to make right leadership choices for their proper governance and national development.

It is for this reason that, helped by media coverage of events and speeches by leaders in the country, the voters are empowered to render their support to leaders most likely to deliver on their portfolios, among other responsibilities allotted to them.

That an unusually large number of 23 presidential candidates this week successfully filed their nomination papers makes it even more imperative for the press to shed abundant light on the capabilities of these politicians ahead of D-Day, July 30, to help voters make the right choices for themselves as well as for this nation as a whole.

And come to think of it, questions must be lingering in the minds of many whether so many people vying for the presidency is a sign of political maturation in our country or whether the scenario points to rampant power hunger.

In the latter case, are Zimbabweans not faced with the case of too many cooks spoiling the broth and with the possible upshot of votes being split so that there is no outright presidential winner, or that the final victor will form a weak government whose task in moving the country forward will be marred by too many opposition political parties  repeatedly railing at its policies and programmes?

Some Zimbabweans will say the large number of presidential candidates denotes democracy having become mature in our country.

But the fact that in old and mature democracies in the West at most three political parties are a common feature with two of them taking turns to rule and the third catalysing the democratic system would seem to provide a sad commentary on “democracy” in our country.

As things stand, some of those presidential candidates served in the past as MPs who during their tenure were rhetorically vociferous in the National Assembly while development in their constituencies has not been just as loud in spite of money provided by parliament for constituency development.

Similarly, a lot of things are not ticking in some urban areas because councillors are not up to scratch and are therefore candidates for consignment into the shade by voters in the forthcoming elections.

In some urban centres, for instance, roads have become so dilapidated that even donkey drawn carts find it difficult to navigate the gaping potholes while pedestrians risk straining or even breaking their legs on those roads in some cases.

Overall, leaders prone to feathering their nests or to corruption or tribalism should never be allowed to hold public office as they are a danger to society.

But, surely, 38 years of independence and self determination should have witnessed more beautiful ones being born politically to become patriotic catalysts in both the political and economic emancipation of our people?

It is of paramount importance therefore that the various communication media in this country should help voters in electing the right candidate so that leaders driven by a development ethos will come to the forefront to give Zimbabwe a bold new thrust developmentally to resuscitate an economy virtually crippled by illegal Western sanctions and corruption which saw the externalisation of huge sums of money by some people in our beautiful country.

The incumbent government’s new dispensation should override which ever political party emerges victorious from the harmonised elections in order to fully revive the legacy of the armed revolution so that the present and future generations of Zimbabweans will jealously guard our independence as a golden treasure which must be kept ad infinitum for generations to come.