Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,
on Wednesday, January 23, 2018, President Emmerson Mnangagwa announced that
elections will be held before July this year.
The MDC has always been prepared for these elections and in
fact, ever since the last harmonised elections that were held in July, 2013, we
have been oiling our party machinery to ensure that this year’s elections will
be a walk over for us.
Whilst the Mnangagwa administration has been persistently
stating that this year’s elections will be free and fair, the situation that
obtains on the ground points to a totally different scenario. For instance, in
virtually all the country’s rural areas, people have been forced to surrender
the serial numbers of their biometric voter registration slips to their local
village heads and Zanu PF officials. This has been a systematic campaign of
psychological and emotional terror meant to instil fear in the rural electorate
so that they are compelled to vote for Zanu PF in the forthcoming elections.
This psychological terror campaign has now reached the
cities because in certain parts of Highfield and Hopley in the capital city,
Harare, Zanu PF officials have embarked on a door to door campaign forcing
people to surrender serial numbers of their voter registration slips. Needless
to state, this reprehensible and unlawful practice can never be consistent with
a desire to conduct a free and fair election.
The MDC and other concerned stakeholders have since brought
this terror campaign to the attention of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission and
we sincerely hope and trust that ZEC will do whatever it takes to make sure
that all electoral malpractices are completely eliminated in time for the
elections.
No rocket science is needed to ascertain that Zanu PF is
smelling a humiliating and crushing electoral defeat in this year’s harmonised
elections and as such, the Mnangagwa administration is literally clutching at
straws; desperately trying to unfairly tilt the electoral playing field in its
favour.
The MDC calls upon the gallant and heroic people of
Zimbabwe to roundly reject and ignore these desperate shenanigans that the
beleaguered Mnangagwa administration is resorting to. The people’s vote is
secret and indeed, the illegal practice of forcibly recording the serial
numbers of voters’ registration slips should be resisted by all lawful means
necessary.
We are aware that soldiers in civilian attire have been
deployed to all rural districts of Zimbabwe to campaign for the deeply
unpopular and incorrigibly factionalised Zanu PF party. These soldiers are also
embarking on clandestine operations meant to hoodwink the local people into
believing that they are innocent members of non – governmental organisations
who have been sent to drill boreholes in certain rural districts such as Nkayi
South and Nkayi North.
Traditional leaders are also being abused to make them
operate as de facto Zanu PF political commissars in their respective areas of
jurisdiction. The MDC has always respected traditional leaders and we have
always held them in very high esteem. We would like to call upon Zanu PF to
leave our traditional leaders alone so that they can continue to peacefully
carry out their duties as the custodians of our cultural traditions and values.
We will continue to call for the opening up of the
country’s State –owned print and electronic media to all political players; in
tandem with the dictates of the supreme law of the land. As such, we expect
Zimpapers and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation to immediately stop to
operate as if they are Zanu PF’ sole and exclusive propaganda mouthpieces.
The MDC is definitely going to resoundingly win the
forthcoming harmonised elections and we call upon all patriotic and eligible
Zimbabweans who have not yet registered to vote to turn up and register to vote
during the on – going biometric voter registration blitz. The people’s victory
is guaranteed.
Obert Chaurura Gutu
MDC National Spokesperson
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