Free for all
The Herald today reported that 29 political parties, the latest being formed on Monday 13 this week, are asking to be bankrolled by government for their political activities ahead of elections.
Interesting.
29 political parties asking for funding from the fiscus?
And we are only hearing about some of these obscure outfits now, talk about trying to cash in on politics, as if we are not seeing it already from individuals sitting in the Inclusive Government who are resisting primaries!
Ok then let’s take a look at the numbers.
It’s been reported that under the Political Parties Finance Act, the country’s three main political parties, were expected to share USD5 million according to their parliamentary representation.
But according to a ZBC report last month, the parties had received only USD500,000 with Patrick Chinamasa saying they (Zanu PF?) are “putting pressure on Finance Minister Tendai Biti to release the outstanding US$4,5 million.”
Now, seeing that Biti is already failing (or reluctant, depending on your political leanings) to “give” Zanu PF and the two MDCs the remaining USD4,5 million, where the hell is the money for the 29 political parties expected to come from, considering that 29 more can easily emerge from the woodwork in the weeks ahead of these elections?
Perhaps like every vulture that has emerged in our very amoral political landscape, these folks are expecting the largess to come from the diamond manna … why, more diamonds have been discovered in Bikita!
The Herald reported last December that Zanu PF had budgeted USD600,000 for the referendum for its awareness campaigns, lord knows where they got the money from, but the point is, funding any political activity is not for the faint hearted, that is why Zanu PF gets hot under the collar when the MDCs run around across the country using resources whose source Zanu PF desperately wants revealed.
You then have to ask exactly how much are these 29 political parties asking for?
Perhaps they should quietly return to the dustbins from where they crawled, but then it has been whispered that some political parties that always emerge in the run-up to elections are spoilers created by the spooks to muddy the waters for Tsvangirai not to see victory!
So then, it could be these are the same people pushing for the funding of their political outfits, after all, they always know something that we don’t about the nation’s wealth, which apparently is also being kept away from the finance minister.
“The money is there, let’s form a political party,” they whisper.