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The D-day for political parties is fast approaching with less than two weeks left before the harmonised elections scheduled for 31 July. More than 35 political parties have emerged, a confirmation of democracy that the country is enjoying. Many of these political parties are participating in the elections for the first time.
The three political parties in the inclusive Government, Zanu-PF, MDC-T and MDC command the largest following but the real battle is between Zanu-PF and MDC-T. The two parties have already launched their election manifestos and their leaders have been crisscrossing the length and breadth of this country selling their policies to the electorate. The electorate has been afforded the opportunity to assess the political parties in the inclusive Government during the past four years and those who have delivered will be rewarded by being voted back into office.
What the parties are probably doing at the moment is to market their future programmes which they hope to implement once voted into office. We have already alluded to the fact that those in the inclusive Government will be assessed by what they were capable of delivering during the past four years but the story is different for the newcomers that have not been in government. Theirs is an uphill task to convince the electorate that they have the capacity, not only to govern, but to better what those that have been afforded the opportunity to preside over the governance issues of this country have done.
It cannot be denied that when the Zanu-PF Government took over power in 1980, it covered a lot of ground in terms of development. Hundreds of schools were built in both rural and urban areas, several colleges and universities were also built thereby enabling the Government to do away with the colonial bottleneck system which was meant to limit the number of blacks that could proceed to colleges and the university. The country which just had one university at independence, today boasts of several state and private universities.
The country has recorded remarkable progress in the education sector and this is confirmed by the fact that the country has the highest literacy rate on the African continent. The country is in fact the only one with more than 90 percent literacy rate on the continent. The education sector is just one of the many sectors that enjoyed phenomenal growth since independence. Zanu-PF which has been in the driving seat until the formation of the inclusive Government in 2009, has every right to claim credit for the remarkable progress that the country has recorded since independence.
The party did not only spearhead development but also empowered the people through its land redistribution programme which saw the western countries, irked by the fact that their kith and kin had been removed from the land, imposing illegal sanctions on the country. The illegal sanctions caused untold suffering to the ordinary people hence the 2008 protest vote which brought about the “marriage of convenience”, the Global Political Agreement.
The electorate as it prepares to cast the vote on 31 July knows the strength and weaknesses of the inclusive Government and who in the inclusive Government delivered or failed. The campaigns, as already stated, are meant to sell political parties’ future programmes because the real parties commanding significant following are those in the inclusive Government whose capabilities were exposed during the past four years in government. The electorate, we want to believe, will make an informed decision come 31 July.
We need not remind the electorate that whatever decision they take on 31 July will bind them for the next five years. We want at this juncture to once again appeal to leaders of political parties to continue preaching the gospel of peace to enable the people to exercise their right to freely elect people of their choice to lead them.
Online Reporter