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The fact that we have had peace for decades sometimes makes us take it for granted though it should not be so. As some thinkers have pointed out, peace does not necessarily mean an absence of war, but it can be a state of mind that is brought about by a particular political system.    
The country’s politics, therefore, plays a major part in ensuring that the people feel secure enough to freely participate in and benefit from the processes towards the building of the country. Any feeling of marginalisation by one group leads to a state of instability since there would be latent conflict that would only take an incident for it to flare up into full-blown violence.

We are glad that our political leadership has seen it fit to deal with suspicions and pockets of disinformation by different players in the country by going out into the provinces to address the people on the state of the country and the need for peace. The planned joint rallies are a good sign that points us in the right direction on this electoral democracy highway that we have chosen for this country. In November last year, the parties to the Global Political Agreement that brought about the inclusive government, Zanu-PF, MDC-T and MDC, held a meeting of organs of their parties that was addressed by the leaders of the three parties and the forthcoming meetings will be a follow-up of that meeting.

“The purpose of the meetings will be to inform the greater public on the need to tolerate each other. This is an idea of all the parties in the inclusive Government, so we will go to all the provinces with the same message of tolerance and co-existence,” said Cde Didymus Mutasa, Zanu-PF secretary for administration.

It is quite important for the political parties to speak with one voice on the issue of peace since without peace, it would be difficult to practise their politics. The parties can differ in terms of their manifestos, their ideologies and other issues but they should never sing from different hymn books when it comes to calling for peace.

We have only one Zimbabwe that we should never surrender to our detractors through our disunity nor expose to condemnation through holding elections in an atmosphere of violence. We believe these joint rallies should give some impetus to the Organ on National Healing that definitely seeks direction from the principals.

If the principals drink tea together in Harare, why should their supporters fail to share tea in the provinces and districts while differing on how to take this country forward.  Our diverse heroes that lie in and outside the country, the living heroes and even the unborn will only be at peace if we celebrate our diversity and embrace one national anthem, one flag and our one Zimbabwe.

It is our hope that the new spirit of preaching peace in this land, as we have suggested before, does not only cascade to the grassroots but also spreads around the country through even major joint campaign rallies where the principals of the different parties spell out their policies to the people.

It is high time our politics moved from the terrain of personalities into issues that centre on the vision for this country and the best way of navigating our way towards that vision.  For now, we can only say let us lay the firm foundation for that vision, which is peace, and then all else shall fall into place.