PARLIAMENT’S LOUDEST FIGHT IS FOR ITSELF

There is something rotten about a political class that suddenly becomes energetic, organised, and fiercely united only when its own comfort is under discussion. Watch how quickly our parliamentarians find their voices when loans, allowances, vehicles, housing, land, or travel perks are involved. Watch the urgency. Watch the coordination. Watch the determination. Then compare that energy to the silence around broken hospitals, collapsing schools, struggling teachers, underpaid nurses, or communities abandoned after elections. The contrast tells you everything you need to know.

Zimbabwe’s MPs love reminding us that public service is difficult, demanding, and important work. On that, they are right. Representing citizens should be serious work. Making laws should be serious work. Scrutinising budgets should be serious work. Holding government accountable should be serious work. The problem is not that MPs should be respected. The problem is that too many appear to respect the benefits of office more than the responsibilities that come with it.

That is why public anger keeps growing.

Because this no longer looks like representation. It looks like consumption.

A country in economic pain is being asked to watch elected officials negotiate better lifestyles for themselves with astonishing confidence. Housing loans are apparently not enough, so bigger ones are needed. Vehicle support is apparently not enough, so better arrangements are demanded. Salaries are not enough. Allowances are not enough. Travel benefits are not enough. Land allocations are not enough. Somehow, in a country where millions survive through hustle, sacrifice, and remittances, there is always another reason why parliamentarians deserve more.

And they always seem able to explain it with a straight face.

Inflation. Comparisons with ministers. Cost of public duty. Professional dignity.

The language changes. The appetite does not.

What makes this especially offensive is that many of these same politicians become strangely invisible when their constituencies need them most. Some citizens only remember seeing their MP when elections are close enough to smell. Suddenly there are promises. Suddenly there are visits. Suddenly people matter. Once office is secured, many disappear into the machinery of political comfort until the next campaign season arrives.

That is not representation.

That is seasonal performance.

And before anyone pretends this is about fairness, let us be clear. Nobody is arguing that public servants should live like beggars. Serious governance requires serious people, and serious people should be reasonably compensated. But somewhere between fair support and shameless entitlement, Zimbabwe’s political class appears to have lost all sense of proportion.

Look around this country.

Teachers are stretched beyond reason.

Nurses continue carrying impossible burdens.

Young graduates cannot find meaningful opportunity.

Families ration basics.

Civil servants struggle.

Small businesses barely breathe.

Yet one of the most organised political conversations seems to be about improving parliamentary comfort.

How does that not provoke outrage.

The deeper danger is cultural. Once politics becomes visibly more rewarding than productive work, the entire national incentive structure becomes poisoned. People stop seeing public office as service and start seeing it as access. Politics becomes less about ideas, reform, or accountability, and more about entry into a protected economic class.

That destroys democracies quietly.

Because the wrong people begin chasing leadership for the wrong reasons.

And Zimbabwe already has enough evidence of what that looks like.

A parliament should be where ordinary citizens believe someone is fighting for them. Right now, too many Zimbabweans look at parliament and see a place where the most successful lobbying is done by lawmakers for themselves.

That is a tragedy.

Because a country where representatives become a privileged class detached from public suffering is not strengthening democracy.

It is hollowing it out from inside.