- The Church leaders have also realized that since 2000, election periods have been characterized by violence and paralyzing polarization and have helped to provoke high levels of mistrust. On one hand, the ruling party has blamed the opposition for selective recognition of electoral processes and for celebrating when results go in their favour while crying foul when results go in favour of the incumbents. On the other hand, the opposition has continued to point to gross human rights violations and the skewed political playing field. Different observers and independent commissions have raised the need for a broad-based and comprehensive national dialogue to find lasting solution to these challenges and mutual accusation. What has not been proposed is the environment conducive enough to allow for such transformative national conversation to bring hope. It is such a solution the Church is humbly proposing to the nation.
- While all the political bickering is continuing, the basic concern for the ordinary citizen across the political divide is to get on with their personal development. In the current context, the citizens have grown weary from struggling against the never-ending waves of electoral polarization that undermine their hard work, disrupt community building and erode progress. The danger is that, the more citizens lose confidence in democratic processes such as elections, the more apathetic they will become, and the less representative political offices will become. We must rescue this situation by providing, not yet other piecemeal solutions. What we need is a proper break with the current paralysis and move towards real renewal and transformation.
- It is in this light that the Church leaders are proposing a national seven-year SABBATH period for the purposes of (a) establishing an emergency recovery mechanism to address the dire national situation, especially for the most vulnerable communities, (b) rebuilding trust and confidence by healing all the hurts of the past, (c) developing a shared national reform agenda to deepen our democracy, (d) establishing a shared and inclusive national economic vision. The SABBATH proposal entails the suspension of the constitutional provision of elections but such a deficiency will be redressed through a national referendum. The national referendum question would seek to ascertain from all Zimbabweans whether they agree with a proposal for a seven-year suspension of all political contestation for the sake of rebuilding trust and confidence by healing to all hurts of the past, sharing and executing a shared constitutional and political national reform agenda, and establishing and implementing a shared national economic vision.
- The Church leaders are not proposing any detailed government structure of the SABBATH season. Such an implementation structure must emerge from a process of consultation of citizens at different layers of society. The structure will take into consideration the institutional and systemic requirements to achieve the objectives and safeguard the outcomes of the SABBATH. Through this SABBATH call, the church leaders are soliciting for national acceptance of the seven-year SABBATH period as a season for trust and confidence building, resetting of national politics, and creating an appropriate environment for economic recovery outside party political competition. The assumption is that once the principle receives national acceptance through a referendum, a consultative process to design the operationalization framework of the SABBATH season will be established through a broad-based and comprehensive national dialogue involving all levels of society.
- Taking into consideration that the SABBATH call is a holistic and long-term process, but also being aware that we are currently faced with a national humanitarian and emergency situation, we as the church commit ourselves to upscaling our efforts towards health, education, development and humanitarian assistance. In the same vein, we call upon all political actors, state and non-state actors to respond to the immediate need for humanitarian assistance and social services to alleviate the suffering of Zimbabweans.
Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert…I, I am He who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I will not remember your sins. (Isaiah 43: 18-19, 25)
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