Following a meeting of our Youth Assembly National Council today, we
wish to affirm our support to the efforts of President Morgan
Tsvangirai and the MDC Alliance in forging a coalition ahead of the
watershed election next year.
Those who say that a coalition is
coming are not far off the mark. We are ready to work with everyone in
the broader democratic movement in line with our Congress resolutions
and the principles adopted by the party’s national council, the supreme
decision-making body in between Congresses.
In our meeting
today, the Youth Assembly agreed that it is high time that we defended
our future. We cannot allow Zanu PF to do whatever it wants with us and
in 2018 we are absolutely going to defend the people from Zanu PF’s
terror campaign.
The MDC Youth Assembly is happy and content with
the party's decision to allocate a 20% quota to the assembly. As such
we are now preparing the our candidates list for next year's elections.
The party has already advised us that all constituencies that we have
been holding and those we contested are all youth constituencies
What (President Robert) Mugabe and his party did in by-elections and
the resurgence of the Zanu PF terror groups does not scare us, and we
are warning them that this time around they must not press this violence
button again. Enough is enough.
We are not going to allow Zanu
PF to rig the 2018 elections as we are going to protect our votes and
defend them vigorously. After 2018, Zanu PF must be history. It’s time
for us youths and all Zimbabweans to define our own future by
registering to vote.
Zimbabwe has now reached a defining moment and comrades we are not going back until Zimbabwe becomes free again.
We call upon fellow citizens to democratically and fearlessly fight for
the establishment of an egalitarian society in which the rights of all
citizens are upheld and respected.
As MDC Youth Assembly, we demand that the ZEC secretariat should be run by competent, non-partisan personnel.
We note with great concern the conflict of interest created by having
the Judicial Service Commission Secretary (JSC) doubling up as the
chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission.
Today we humbly
appeal to Rita Makarau to do an honourable thing and resign as
chairperson of ZEC, because the world is watching and surely a better
tomorrow is coming.
We also demand the demilitarisation and de-
politicisation of ZEC through the appointment of commissioners in a
public and transparent manner and the removal of military personnel from
their positions within the ZEC secretariat.
We are saying to
Mugabe leave office, while you can still salvage your fazed legacy. It
is not a secret anymore, that Mugabe deserves to be in an old people’s
home and is no longer fit to be the country’s leader.
He is visibly tired, clueless and has nothing new to offer than sleeping everywhere and anywhere he sits.
We cannot allow a 93-year old man to lead us. We have become a laughing stock to the whole world for abusing an old man.
It is our duty as energetic youths to help this old man to pack his bags and leave State House peacefully in 2018.
We note with concern that while the youth in the country are wallowing
in poverty Mugabe’s two sons Robert Junior and Chatunga are splashing
millions of our money in South Africa and living large at the expense of
the sweat of our parents. Given their abuse of money and drugs, we now
know who stole the huge chunk of the missing $15 billion.
The
national council of the MDC Youth Assembly also resolved that the
proposed $1billion dollar Robert Mugabe University is not a national
priority given that graduates from existing tertiary institutions remain
unemployed, with most of them selling airtime. There is no adequate
accommodation and there is no proper infrastructure at existing tertiary
institutions, especially at Lupane University, Great Zimbabwe
University and others dotted throughout the country.
We also
resolved today that Mugabe’s legacy does not justify a national day
being dedicated to his name. Rather than permanently etching his name
into the national memory, Mugabe is actually someone the youth of this
country want to forget as soon as he leaves
office.
Lastly, we
reaffirm our support to the coalition-building process and the
consolidation of a formidable MDC Alliance. We believe the coalition
will be the best platform through which to bring about the much-needed
political change in the country. As the MDC National Youth Assembly, we
are fully behind this process in line with the demands of the people of
Zimbabwe.

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