The Zimbabwe African People’s Union (ZAPU) has come out guns blazing in defence of Bulawayo mayor David Coltart after Local Government minister Daniel Garwe slammed him for hosting Ndebele cultural leader King Bulelani Khumalo.
Garwe demanded a formal explanation from Coltart in a letter where he branded Bulelani a “charlatan”—a move that has sparked outrage across Matabeleland and reignited tensions around cultural recognition and political interference.
Zapu president Sibangilizwe Nkomo didn’t mince his words, accusing Garwe of attempting to humiliate Coltart and bulldoze Ndebele cultural institutions.
“We know that there are people with a hidden agenda of trying to get rid of our Bulawayo mayor because they do not like him,” Nkomo said.
“We love our mayor and we will defend him. We will not be intimidated by minister Garwe’s bully tactics.”
He further accused Garwe of pushing a colonial mindset.
Garwe, Coltart Face Off Over ‘King’ Bulelani Khumalo
“He is still fighting a colonialist agenda,” Nkomo said.
“King Bulelani has the right to visit the mayor just like anyone, whether he or she is a visitor or not. Even the minister himself belongs to a certain chieftainship.”
Nkomo also charged that Garwe’s comments were an insult to ongoing efforts to address the wounds left by the Gukurahundi massacres—a sensitive chapter in Zimbabwe’s history still seeking national healing.
In remarks carried by the Southern Eye, King Bulelani’s spokesperson Bornwell Khumalo rejected the minister’s claims, reiterating the king’s cultural not political mission.
“He cannot say our king is a fraud, or defunct. That is an insult,” Khumalo said.
“If we are practising our culture, which he does not understand, where does he come in? We are practising our culture, not politics.”
The debate over the Ndebele monarchy is not new. Mzilikazi Khumalo, who founded the Ndebele kingdom in the 1800s after breaking away from Zulu king Shaka, was succeeded by King Lobengula.
Following Lobengula’s presumed death in 1894, the kingship lay dormant, though attempts to revive it have intensified in recent decades—much to the government’s discomfort, which insists Zimbabwe is a republic, not a monarchy.
