Govt using Covid-19 to close women’s political participation

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By NQOBANI NDLOVU FIREBRAND lawyer and politician Fadzayi Mahere has opened up about her experiences after testing positive for Covid-19, two days after her release from remand prison for tweeting alleged falsehoods. “I felt guilty that I might have (unknowingly) infected other people,” Mahere told The Standard last week. Mahere tested positive on January 20, […]

By NQOBANI NDLOVU

FIREBRAND lawyer and politician Fadzayi Mahere has opened up about her experiences after testing positive for Covid-19, two days after her release from remand prison for tweeting alleged falsehoods.

“I felt guilty that I might have (unknowingly) infected other people,” Mahere told The Standard last week.

Mahere tested positive on January 20, two days after her release from Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison following “seven days of pre-trial” incarceration for allegedly spreading falsehoods.

On her FaceBook post, Mahere said she had been in an “isolation cell” at the “quarantine section” of Chikurubi, and nothing could have prepared her for the news that she had tested positive to Covid-19.

At the time, Zimbabwe was recording a surge in Covid-19 confirmed cases and deaths, resulting in Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga, who also doubles as Health and Child Care minister, announcing a 30-day lockdown accompanied by a 6pm to 6am curfew.

“God has willed it so there must be a higher lesson to be drawn from it, I told myself,” Mahere says on how she felt after doctors told her she had tested positive.

“I was not sure how the virus would impact me personally. The science seems to be so varied and ambiguous regarding how Covid-19 affects different people. It seems like a DNA lottery. I was not sure whether it would be smooth sailing and mild or severe and life-threatening.”

Mahere is out on $10 000 bail for allegedly posting falsehoods on social media.

She posted that police had killed an infant while enforcing lockdown rules. Police dismissed the post as false and malicious.

MDC Alliance Zengeza West MP Job Sikhala and journalist Hopewell Chin’ono were also arrested and detained on similar charges. They face a fine or up to 20 years in jail if convicted for publishing a false story prejudicial to the state.

Mahere’s major worry was that she might have spread the virus unknowingly.

“I felt guilty that I might have infected other people. I had hugged my mother many times after court. “I had fist-bumped my father. My slightly ageing parents had driven me from prison. I had been in contact with my siblings, lawyers and friends,” she said.

“I remembered the inmate, who had picked up one of my used masks and begged to use it. I was angry, irrationally so. The statistics were no longer random figures published by government. I was now one of those numbers.

“I had spent the previous week in a different type of isolation – unsettled, unable to move freely. But now, I was confronted by a different kind of prison, characterised by tall walls of mental and physical pain. The green garb of the virus enveloped my body. I was grateful that I was out of prison and could access decent care and recuperate in dignified conditions.”

Mahere has been actively loud in challenging the Zanu PF government since joining politics. She contested as an independent candidate for Harare East constituency in 2018, but lost to MDC Alliance vice-president Tendai Biti.

In May 2020, MDC Alliance president Nelson Chamisa appointed her party spokesperson, replacing Daniel Molokele, a Hwange Central legislator. Despite the trauma of testing Covid-19 positive, friends, family and colleagues “made all the difference”, Mahere noted.

“A lot of it is a mind game. One needs to escape the temptation of being overwhelmed by it all… I tried to limit phone time and any unnecessary interactions that would exhaust me. This, together with a strong network of kind family and friends, has made all the difference,” she said.

“Everyone was amazing. My family and friends ensured that food and groceries were at my doorstep every day. They baked me nice treats, bought me flowers and warm gifts. They called and sent kind messages. I never felt lonely or stigmatised. They prayed for me. “It was like I had dozens of guardian angels watching over me.”

Despite the ordeal, Mahere, while admitting that Covid-19 affected her participation in active politics, argues the disease should not be used as a tool against activism.

The MDC Alliance spokespersonis no stranger in police cells. In 2020, she was among the many activists arrested and charged with unnecessary movement for participating in the July 31 anti-government protests.

“This [Covid-19 era] is not the time to be jailing innocent young people, who are speaking out for a better Zimbabwe with a view to ensure their future. This is not the time to criminalise an opposition that is meant to provide checks and balances against the abuse of state power for the good of the people,” Mahere said.

Critics argue authorities are using Covid-19 to further close the democratic space. Already, all electoral activities have been suspended as a Covid-19 preventive measure, a development that election watchdogs, human rights groups and opposition dismiss as an assault on the constitution and democracy.

They argue authorities must take a leaf from other countries such as the United States, Tanzania and recently Uganda that have held elections despite the Covid-19 outbreak.

The Zimbabwe Election Support Network (zesn), an independent election watchdog, recently published an article aptly titled: Covid-19: “An impediment to women’s participation in democratic electoral processes in 2020”, detailing how Covid-19 has affected women political participation.

“With socio-economic challenges magnified, democratic processes cease to be a priority for women, who have other responsibilities that they have to take care of.

“Governance processes were done online, however, most women could not afford the data to participate, for example, various councils advised that they would do budget consultations via WhatsApp groups,” the zesn argued in its paper published in their January-February 2021 newsletter.

“Women’s voices and priorities were excluded in the budgeting since a huge constituency of women were alienated from the discussions.

“Other than the cost of data to participate in online meetings and discussions, some women complained that they faced more violence in the cyber space because it is unregulated.”

According to zesn, Covid-19 has further reinforced roles of female activists as mothers and not as politicians as the “burden to take care of the sick also primarily rests on women; therefore, lockdowns added responsibilities on women within the home with very little resources to take their loved ones to hospitals and clinics”.

Political parties while noting that Covid-19 affected active political participation, however, argued that the pandemic should not be used as a tool to reinforce patriarchal tendencies.

“We could only offer her [MDC-T vice-president Thokozani Khupe] moral support and the time she needed to fend off the pandemic. “We don’t have gender-specific responses as yet because what we know so far tells us that Covid-19 does not discriminate on any basis at all,” MDC-T spokesperson Witness Dube said.

“As a party, we oppose all forms of gender stereotypes, and Covid-19 should not in any way reinforce negative patriarchal tendencies.”

Artwell Moyo, the national organising secretary of the United Movement for Devolution, added: “The lockdown has also proved that besides being torchbearers in the political field, women, especially in the Matabeleland region, play the role of both mother and father since the majority of the men are out of the country as economic refugees.”