Zimbabwe’s governance dilemmas rarely announce themselves through grand policy failures alone. More often, they surface in quieter but more revealing moments—at roadblocks, in village courts, and sometimes, at the gates of a school.

The standoff involving Chief Murinye and Riverton School in Masvingo is one such moment: a local dispute that has evolved into a national conversation about power, accountability and the blurred line between authority and entitlement.

At face value, the incident appears straightforward. A traditional leader blocked access to a newly established private school, citing procedural grievances over consultation and community rights. 

On the first day of the school term, parents and pupils were reportedly turned away as access roads were obstructed.

Beneath these immediate facts, however, lies a more unsettling question: when does authority cease to be stewardship and begin to resemble impunity?

Zimbabwe’s Constitution recognises traditional leaders as custodians of culture, land and community cohesion. Chiefs are expected to safeguard communal interests, mediate disputes and uphold social order. In many rural communities, their legitimacy often exceeds that of distant state institutions.

But that moral authority depends on restraint. It is sustained by the perception that power is exercised for the collective good—not deployed as leverage for private gain.

The controversy surrounding Chief Murinye cuts because it appears to challenge that balance. Reports suggest the dispute escalated beyond administrative disagreement into a public display of coercive authority: the blocking of a road, the disruption of schooling, and alleged demands that seemed to serve personal rather than communal interests. 

Even if aspects of the dispute remain contested, the optics are damaging. They reinforce a growing public perception that certain offices in Zimbabwe operate beyond the rules that bind everyone else.

This problem is not confined to traditional leadership. Zimbabwe has long wrestled with a culture of selective accountability. From political elites to senior bureaucrats, the boundary between public office and private entitlement is often porous. 

What makes the Murinye episode particularly resonant is its symbolism: if even a school—arguably among the most socially protected institutions—can become collateral in a power contest, then few spaces can be considered sacrosanct.

Balance, however, demands that the broader context also be acknowledged. Chiefs operate within a complex and often contradictory legal ecosystem. Communal land governance, customary authority and modern regulatory frameworks frequently collide. Investors sometimes arrive armed with permits issued in Harare that carry little social legitimacy on the ground. 

Communities feel marginalised when developments appear without consultation, breeding resentment that chiefs are expected to manage but are rarely equipped to resolve constructively.

In that sense, the Murinye dispute reflects a deeper institutional failure: the state’s inability to clearly harmonise traditional authority with constitutional governance. Chiefs are left as gatekeepers without clearly defined limits, while investors navigate parallel systems of approval. Conflict, under such conditions, becomes almost inevitable.

Yet institutional confusion does not excuse coercive conduct. Authority—whether traditional or statutory—is not a licence to intimidate. Blocking roads, disrupting access to education, or using status to extract concessions undermines the very legitimacy chiefs depend on. Power exercised without accountability corrodes respect far faster than any legal reform can restore it.

What makes this episode particularly troubling is the precedent it risks setting. If a chief can publicly obstruct a school with limited immediate consequence, what prevents similar actions against clinics, churches or businesses?

Impunity, once normalised, spreads quickly. Today it is a school in Masvingo; tomorrow it could be a health centre in Gokwe or a borehole project in Binga.

The state’s response therefore matters as much as the incident itself. Quiet mediation may restore calm, but silence on principle sends the wrong message. Zimbabwe needs a clearer articulation of the limits of traditional authority within a constitutional democracy.

Chiefs must be protected in their cultural role—but equally bound by law in their public conduct.

This is not an argument against chieftainship. On the contrary, it is a defence of it. Traditional leadership endures not through fear, but through moral capital. The moment chiefs are perceived as power brokers rather than community stewards, the institution loses what has sustained it for generations.

The Murinye affair should therefore be more than a fleeting headline. It should prompt overdue reflection on how Zimbabwe balances respect for tradition with the demands of modern governance. The question is no longer simply what happened in Masvingo, but what standards the country chooses to enforce next.

Because when authority slips into impunity, it does not merely embarrass institutions. It erodes the social contract itself. And in a country already struggling to rebuild trust in leadership, that is a price Zimbabwe can ill afford to keep paying.

Simbarashe Namusi is a peace, leadership and governance scholar as well as media expert. He writes in his personal capacity.