Lovemore Moyo forms political party

Peter Matika, Senior Reporter

FORMER MDC-T national chairman Mr Lovemore Moyo who abandoned the faction riddled party last month has formed a political party — United Movement for Devolution (UMD).

In a statement on Saturday, Mr Moyo said the party was formed following a meeting that was held on 4 April in Bulawayo.

“Various stakeholders such as the church, civil society, the students movement, traditional and cultural stakeholders, and the ordinary Zimbabweans, converged on Bulawayo where they took a critical look at the Southern region as well as Zimbabwe’s socio-economic and political situation. From that meeting emerged an urgent need to come up with a response to the myriad of problems the Southern region and the nation at large is facing,” he said.

Mr Moyo said the party’s principles and values were premised on the aspect of the devolution of power. Mr Moyo said stakeholders who attended the meeting agreed that UMD would be futuristic in its programming and planning of activities.

“Our bigger plan is to prepare Zimbabwe for a bigger UMD brand in the very foreseeable future. However, the delegates agreed that while we plan for the future, UMD will, with regard to the forthcoming 2018 general elections, allow members to contest under its banner. Our modus operandi will be that we will support any of our members who declare interest in contesting in a particular constituency for the House of Assembly or ward for the local government elections,” he said.

“It was further agreed that the party shall use the three Matabeleland provinces, namely Matabeleland North, South, and Bulawayo, as the initial administrative devolution structures. A review of progress will then be made on how these three have fared, following which a final decision will be made going forward. This, delegates noted, enables the party to focus on strengthening the provinces’ capacities to deal with the agenda of devolution,” he said.

Mr Moyo jumped the MDC-T ship pointing out that the party has lost its direction after the appointment of Advocate Nelson Chamisa as president following the death of Mr Morgan Tsvangirai.

@peterkmatika