Reacting to Chamisa’s much-publicised address on Tuesday
dubbed Agenda 2021, Zanu PF national spokesperson Simon Khaya Moyo accused the
youthful opposition leader of trying to cause instability in the country,
adding that the ruling party would make it a matter for law enforcement
agencies.
In his address which has unsettled Zanu PF, Chamisa defined
the year 2021 as the year for citizens to resist all machinations and show
resilience to the ruling government’s oppressive rule.
Chamisa also accused Zanu PF of masterminding attempts to
decimate his party using their
Khaya Moyo equated Chamisa’s calls to those made ahead of
the planned July 31, 2020 anti-corruption protests that were thwarted by the
military and the police, leading to the arrest of journalist Hopewell Chin’ono,
MDC Alliance vice-chairperson Job Sikhala and Transform Zimbabwe leader Jacob
Ngarivhume.
“Mr Chamisa did not only fail to demonstrate leadership,
but failed to instil hope in his fractured party, instead, rumbling about
seeking to establish pockets of resistance across the country similar to the
ill-fated July 31, 2020 attempted violent demonstrations, whose sole attempt
was to destabilise the country,” he said.
“While Zanu PF has the capacity to thwart such
machinations, as a law-abiding organisation, we rest the matter with the law
enforcement agencies.”
Khaya Moyo added that Chamisa’s “veiled threats to unseat a
constitutionally-elected government” would be stopped at all costs.
He said the opposition leader must, instead, join dialogue
under the Political Actors’ Dialogue (Polad) platform. Chamisa has dismissed
the platform as a charade, and instead called for a broad-based convergence.
“Zanu PF, therefore, urges political players to embrace
dialogue and join others under Polad in the spirit of frank engagements,
instead of focusing on divisive and polarising antics. For the record, Zanu PF
is proud of how our government has rallied the nation in fighting COVID-19 and
significant strides have been made including among others, acquiring the
vaccine which has seen our frontline warriors being inoculated,” Khaya Moyo
said.
“It is, therefore, not only preposterous, but
irresponsible, to say the least, for Mr Chamisa and his lot to suggest or opine
that our government is using COVID-19 to delay by-elections.”
But the MDC Alliance rubbished Zanu PF’s claims that
Chamisa was agitating for violent action to remove the government, saying Khaya
Moyo’s statement only exposed that the ruling party was afraid of the people.
“The Zimbabwe Agenda 2021 which was articulated by president Chamisa this week has attracted the attention of everyone, including the offices of the government, and the reaction by Zanu PF shows they are scared of the people, they are scared of the people’s agenda and they are afraid of dialogue,” MDC Alliance spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere said.
“Even when invited to resolve a problem, they have this
aggressive and undemocratic reaction.”
“We say convergence agenda can never be a source of
divergence. Calling for unity should never be an unsettling proposal because
Zimbabwe needs healing. We are a nation that is divided. What the people’s
president articulated is an invitation to a national conversation and creates
solutions,” Mahere said.
She accused Zanu PF of itching to create a one-party State
and causing chaos in the opposition camp.
“The evidence that Zanu PF wants to create a one-party
State is what’s been said by Mr Mnangagwa himself. He is on record saying they
would flush out all opponents and that the MDC Alliance is a terrorist
organisation. We have the national commissar of the ruling party (Victor
Matemadanda) saying they will destroy the MDC Alliance and they said they want
a one-party State and their action confirms that,” Mahere said.
“We see their theatrics around defections, theatrics around
weaponisation of the law, right to bail, arbitrary arrests of members of our
party, we see the unlawful recalls of people’s representatives and these are
all working together to create a national crisis. We say the solution to this
is the Agenda 2021 to call for a citizens ‘convergence for change’.” Newsday
0 comments:
Post a Comment