When the Second Republic came into office following the demise of the late nonagenarian and founding president of Zimbabwe in a military-backed takeover in 2017, they promised to entrench democracy in a move that was anticipated by the general populace.
A few years down the line, the Second Republic is failing to live up to its billing in terms of ensuring democracy prevails in the country.
In a normal situation, democracy entails the separation of the three arms of state namely the executive, judiciary and the legislature as well as the media being fourth estate.
The recent case in which Information and Broadcasting Services Minister Monica Mutsvangwa announced a decision by cabinet outlawing the attendance of church services by unvaccinated congregants after a provisional High Court order barring the police from arresting or interfering in the church operation shows how much the nation lags behind towards realisation of democracy.
The executive is however reminded to remove their hands off the other arms of state and ensure sanity prevails in the democracy they had and always preach on the international fora.
Interfering in the operations of the other arms of state by the executive has been their major undoing as it has negatively impacted on the rule of law and thus little or lack of trust in government by the general citizenry.
The executive should get the reminder that they are setting a bad precedence in failure to obey court rulings and what would become of the ordinary man in terms of respecting the judicial outcomes.
Failure to separate the three entities has led to politics of patronage especially in the judicial system where judges of the upper courts notably High, Supreme and Constitutional courts have on a number of occasions made judgements that favour the executive who appoint or elevate them to such positions.
