PRESIDENT SCOFFS AT MDC ALLIANCE:
THE Presidential Youth Interface Meetings are a huge seal of approval on the work the ruling Zanu-PF is doing to empower Zimbabweans, President Mugabe has said.
Addressing guests at a dinner hosted by Zimbabwe’s Ambassador to Iran, Nicholas Kitikiti, President Mugabe said he and his party were not troubled by the recent formation of an opposition “coalition” ahead of next year’s harmonised elections.
“We may have bits and pieces, lots of bits and pieces that call themselves parties, trying to come together.
“And I have said in the past, they don’t have any record, any record of their having been fighters anywhere.
“Political zeroes. I have said it does not matter how many zeroes you try to put together, they never constitute a unit; they remain zeroes.
“But the party is there, the two parties (Zanu and Zapu) that can demonstrate by showing the graves, remains of those who perished in the struggle. This is what continues to bring the people to us.”
The President went on: “They (the opposition) will never ever succeed as long as the party continues to be united. And I’m glad that is the situation.’’
The opposition coalition dubbed MDC-Alliance brings together fringe political parties like the MDC led by Professor Welshman Ncube, the People’s Democratic Party of Mr Tendai Biti, the Multi-Racial Christian Democrats of Mathias Guchutu, Transform Zimbabwe of one Jacob Ngarivhume, Zim-PF led by former Amabassador to Mozambique Agrippa Mutambara and Zanu Ndonga, all of which have never commanded any significant following.
The coalition has since divided the MDC-T with the divisions manifesting in violent clashes witnessed at the party offices in Bulawayo where party vice president Thokozani Khupe had to be hospitalised after being brutally assaulted by pro-Tsvangirai thugs over her opposition to the coalition.
“That’s why you can read, if you have any newspapers or listen to the radio or watch television, or you get some information from the embassy the huge rallies that we are holding, ‘’ President Mugabe said.
“The youth, our youth, very dynamic, are organising these rallies where we have thousands upon thousands of people coming. Some walking long distances to interface with the President and other leaders.
“They call them interface meetings. These started with that long march, the Million-Man March and it is the birth of these interface provincial meetings.
“Huge ones; your parents, fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, are the ones coming to stamp, to give a stamp, the people’s stamp, not to my name, but to the struggle I and others lead. And I thank them for it.”
The President was in Iran for the second-term inauguration of President Hassan Rouhani.
He was accompanied by Foreign Affairs Minister Simbarashe Mumbengegwi and Secretary for Information, Media and Broadcasting Services Mr George Charamba among other senior Government officials.