"We want a quality and innovative community representative without a visible or proven record of corruption, looting, adultery or any criminal activity."
He urged the Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate legislators and councilors who have never worked anywhere else but have now allegedly amassed wealth through criminal abuse of public office.
During the first 15 years of independence, there were strict conditions for one to qualify for election, chief among them that candidates should be rate-payers. Non-property owners such as lodgers and domestic workers were also not allowed to vote.
There was also an unwritten rule that the job of a councilor was voluntary community service providing expert advice to the councils.
Besides being politicians, members of past councils included engineers, accountants, medical doctors, teachers, philanthropists and businesspeople; people who had generally made it in life and were not interested in material gain.
Changes on who qualified as voters and candidates came about after the then ruling party Zanu-PF led by President Robert Mugabe got tired of losing local elections in the low-density suburbs where white candidates stood as independents and won.
Although the excuse was that the party wanted to address past imbalances and enable the once disenfranchised blacks to vote, the intention was to increase the number of black voters in the predominantly white residential areas hoping that black gardeners and housemaids would vote for the party.
This did not work as the whites went along with their domestic servants to the polling stations where they told them that if their candidates lost the elections, the workers would also lose their jobs.
Detective-Conan-themed Lawson convenience store opens in Shanghai
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