adminKennedy Mavhumashava in Chinhoyi
PRESIDENT Mugabe yesterday hailed Zimbabweans for giving Zanu-PF a big victory in the July elections saying its magnitude was so emphatic that it has helped him get over the poor performance of March 2008.
Officially opening the party’s 14th Annual National People’s Conference here yesterday, the biggest gathering that Zanu-PF has had since the July 31 harmonised elections, he joked that the party left Bulawayo for MDC-T to give the foreign-backed party a small refuge.
He said Zanu-PF cadres jostling for power must wait for the party’s elective congress at which such major decisions are made.
“That victory was no fluke,” he said.
“It was not accident. It is no small matter. Therefore, given the formidable forces ranged against our party, it was a spectacular triumph against adversity. We must show what we are. We shall unite to show what we are and true there it was province by province came out with results that devastated the enemy. We didn’t do well in Bulawayo. Yes, takavasiira pavangaite kamumvuri (We left Bulawayo for MDC-T for them to be happy). But we are coming there in another five years.”
Zanu-PF won more than two thirds majority in Parliament in July and President Mugabe got 61 percent of the presidential vote. It swept all seats in a number of provinces like Masvingo and Matabeleland South, but lost all elective seats in Bulawayo where MDC-T won all.
He said the overwhelming victory allows the ruling party to govern without any distraction.
“Zviya zvamakaita 2008 ndatokanganwa. (I have already forgotten our bad performance of 2008). Thank you for giving us as a party this high level of honour. All in Africa, even across Europe, don’t know how we did it. They can’t believe it,” he said.
The President said after the March 2008 poor result, he agreed to work with MDCs, but some accused him of selling out.
“I said ‘let me sell out’. I used to have tea with (Morgan) Tsvangirai and (Arthur) Mutambara. But we (Zanu-PF) worked knowing fully well what we were doing. We went through a tortuous road, a five-year humiliation period. We humbled ourselves for the five years knowing that our people would ultimately know who among us was best to lead them,” he said.
The resounding mandate, he said, enables the party to implement the people-centred programmes it promised during the campaign period for the July elections, chief among them economic empowerment and indigenisation and employment creation.
He reiterated the need for unity in the party.
President Mugabe assured the people that despite the food insecurity prevailing in many parts of the country, the Government will ensure no one starved.
“Indeed, our unity in the party has been our victory,” said President Mugabe turning to his prepared speech. “We dare not lose it, lose this recipe, this tested method, this unfailing guarantor of our victory.”
Apart from promising to economically empowering the people, Zanu-PF also pledged to create employment. The President said employment cannot be divorced from the primary goals of indigenisation and economic empowerment, so he urged Zimbabweans to work for companies that they also partly owned.
Commenting on the just-ended provincial executive elections that were controversial in some provinces, the President acknowledged the existence of shortcomings.
“That exercise revealed a number of shortcomings by way of our readiness for internal democratic processes. Besides, that exercise generated lots of emotions, in some cases quite divisive. This conference must address this whole question, including critically debating the party mechanisms and machinery for holding elections,” he said.
Before his address, President Mugabe tabled the 2013 Central Committee Report to the conference. The 112-page document is an account of the programmes and activities that the party has done since the beginning of the year and its plans for the future.
Online Reporter