OPPOSITION Zapu leader, Dumiso Dabengwa, has revealed plans
to retire from active politics citing old age, saying it is time to handover
the baton to party youths.
Dabengwa has been Zapu leader since 2009 when he broke
ranks with Zanu PF, citing frustration over President Robert Mugabe’s refusal
to step down and his failure to uphold the values of the 1987 Unity Accord
between then PF-Zapu and Zanu.
On Saturday, Dabengwa said he wanted out of politics, and
was not seeking re-election at the party’s next elective congress set for 2020.
“In two years’ time I will be 80-years-old, and it’s my
long held wish that I retire from active politics at that age. I wish the party
grants me this wish. But all the same, I am already serving my constitutional
second term as leader of Zapu, so it must not be hard for the mother party to
let me go seeing that the party constitution will not allow me to stay on,”
Dabengwa told Zapu youths during an elective congress held in Bulawayo at the
weekend.
Mugabe at 93 is not showing any signs of wanting to step
down, and Zanu PF has endorsed him to represent the ruling party in the 2018
harmonised elections. Dabengwa said, for him, at 80 he will be too old to be
burdened with active politics.
“I, therefore, call on the party, especially the youth to
consider leadership renewal across the board. We need young people to take this
movement forward and transform it to contemporary standards. You can take it as
you ably demonstrated by this conference on your own with no financial support
but from yourselves. I am confident I leave the party in capable hands of these
young people gathered here,” he said.
The former Home Affairs minister also urged the party youth
to register to vote for the next elections to “solve the dictatorship” issue by
voting out Zanu PF from power.
“On leadership renewal he said only young people have
solutions to the problems bedevilling the party and country. Just as young
people solved the problem of colonialism, today’s youth will solve the
dictatorship issue.
“It will start by Zapu youth taking leadership of the
mother party come congress in 2020 and subsequently they will tackle the Mugabe
regime and give leadership to the country,” Dabengwa added.
The Zapu youth league elected a new national executive,
with Chrispen Ndlovu from Bulawayo landing the post of chairperson. He will be
deputised by Samantha Makonese from Matabeleland South. Newsday
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