A grieving opposition legislator used a packed graveside eulogy to expose what he called a collapsing health system and a government clinging to power
By Norman Mwale, Zimbabwe correspondent
Mbizo legislator Corban Madzivanyika launched a blistering attack on Zimbabwe’s government over the collapse of public healthcare, speaking at the funeral of Cde Gandashanga, a veteran opposition member whose death he said was emblematic of a broken system that is failing ordinary Zimbabweans every single day.
Addressing mourners at a packed graveside service in Kwekwe, Madzivanyika was unsparing. “Our hospitals are death traps, lacking equipment like CT scanners. It’s a crisis fuelled by a lack of transparency in how health funds are used,” he told the crowd. He pointed specifically to the Midlands province, where the only CT scanner serving the entire region — located at a hospital in Gweru — was stolen and never replaced, leaving patients with no option but to travel vast distances for basic diagnostic care, often at great personal cost and at serious risk to their lives.
Cde Gandashanga was remembered by those who knew him as a steady, fearless cadre who never wavered in his belief in democratic change. He was the kind of grassroots organiser that opposition movements are quietly built on — always encouraging those around him, as mourners recalled, to vote for a better Zimbabwe and to never settle for less.
Madzivanyika broadened his remarks beyond healthcare, turning his attention to what he described as a government more interested in entrenching itself than in serving its people. He was sharply critical of reported plans to extend the current administration’s term to 2030, calling it a cynical attempt to cling to power. Drawing a pointed historical comparison, he noted that the ZANU-PF government under Robert Mugabe had tarred some 19,000 kilometres of roads since independence in 1980, while President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s administration had managed just 1,500 kilometres over the past decade — a stark contrast that drew visible reaction from those gathered.
He urged Zimbabweans to reject what opposition circles call “Cab 3,” a proposed constitutional mechanism that critics say would extend the government’s grip on power well beyond its democratic mandate. “The people must demand accountability and reject attempts to cling to power,” he said.
In a warmer moment, Madzivanyika thanked the Roman Catholic and Methodist churches for their presence at the funeral, and encouraged supporters to follow his social media channels, citing the growing restrictions placed on opposition MPs trying to serve their constituents.
He speaks from bitter personal experience. In 2023, Madzivanyika was arrested in Kwekwe while campaigning in Mbizo Constituency and detained overnight in what critics and human rights observers widely condemned as politically motivated intimidation.
That arrest did not break him. Standing at a graveside in the very city where he was once hauled away in handcuffs, he looked, if anything, more resolute than ever.
Norman Mwale is a Zimbabwean journalist and political correspondent covering governance and politics in the Midlands province.
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