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Harare Bureau
ZANU-PF won the just-ended elections because of its people centred policies and the party will deliver the promises made to the people during the campaigns, President Mugabe said yesterday. Addressing the party’s first Politburo meeting after the crunch elections, Cde Mugabe said the promises were genuine and were not a rhetoric to drum up support.
The revolutionary party promised to improve the welfare of civil servants and create employment based on its indigenisation and empowerment programme.
“With that victory, which is only a continuation of our freedom, our task is to look ahead. What we say, we shall do. We will do. Where in the past, I mean the immediate past has tended to be retrogressive during the inclusive Government, we need to raise the standard of living of our people.
“But to do that we have to remain and stand firm . . . and all the time we must take into account our policy of indigenisation and empowerment. We need to look at our sectors and see how we can improve,” said President Mugabe.
“We promised to resuscitate life in industry, companies that died must be resurrected, those that are about to collapse must be made to stand firm, new ones must rise and all the time we must take into account our policy of indigenisation and empowerment and get our people into employment, into self employment, into situations where they can start their own business,” he said.
President Mugabe said Zimbabwe should stay abreast with technology and not lag behind.
“Stay abreast of the times in technology and do not allow yourselves to lag behind as other countries have tended to do. Look out at our sectors and we will see how we can improve their performance and re-organise them so that we can have better control of them than we have at present.
“If you look at our manufacturing sector, it was companies yes, belonging to those powers which had them. But we have to look at them in terms of what really needs to be improved and how they can be made productive.
“Look at the mining sector. It is not just diamond and platinum. Gold mines are all across the country, gold claims lie all over. Let’s have our people exploit those mines. But exploit them in a manner which assures that the wealth therefore, the products and their earnings from those entities become our wealth by and large and not the wealth of those countries that have in the past exploited us. Our people die in mines not for the wealth that was ours but the wealth that is somebody else’s. That must cease.”
President Mugabe said Zanu-PF’s crushing victory was a defeat of Zimbabwe’s Western enemies bent on effecting illegal regime change in the country.
“We are happy that we have dealt the enemy a blow and the enemy is not Tsvangirai,” he said.
“Tsvangirai is a mere part of the enemy. The enemy is he who is behind Tsvangirai, who is behind the MDC — the British and their allies. Those are the ones who were the real enemies. Those whom we have knocked down. They (Western countries) are quite a strange people. To them principles do not matter, even pledges do not mean anything . . . they are never honest.”
President Mugabe said the West had pledged that if the elections were free and fair, then they would consider lifting sanctions.
“But now even as the whole of Africa is sending us messages of congratulations to say well done, they say the elections were not free. And where are they talking from? London, Washington, Canberra and Ottawa.
“To tell the truth, you do not understand what animals these are. You can never rely on their words. Never ever.”
President Mugabe said Britain and its Western allies were only angling for regime change and nothing short of it was free and fair.
“Of course, with them elections would have been free and fair if the MDC had won. But because it is Zanu-PF, Robert Mugabe heading the party, no. Because it is regime change they are aiming for.”
President Mugabe said Zimbabwe would precisely do the opposite of what the West wished for.
He said the West had no right to determine what was good and bad for the people of Zimbabwe.
President Mugabe said the results of the elections were a huge lesson for the Western imperialists.
He said the whole of Africa was inquiring when the country would have victory celebrations for them to come and show their solidarity.
“Africa is saying tell us the day of the inauguration we want to come. (Ugandan President Yoweri) Museveni has been phoning. They want to come for the inauguration and demonstrate solidarity.
“We thank them for the solidarity they have given us. We assure them of our own friendship and our own solidarity in return. We remain true to the ideals of cooperation.”
President Mugabe expressed gratitude to the UN Secretary-General Mr Ban Ki-Moon who hailed Zimbabwe for conducting peaceful elections. “The insane men of London, Washington and Ottawa, those we leave to the gods. We understand next door we also have a country (Botswana) that will not step with the rest of Africa.
This we should not worry much about it,” he said.
Cde Mugabe urged party members to be patient as his swearing in and that of MPs and Cabinet Ministers would only take place after seven or 14 days due to a constitutional requirement that provided those who wished to challenge the results with an opportunity to do so.
“Whether they do so or not, we will have seven days after that to make it 14, I understand. Whether they go to court or not thereafter, we can have our inauguration. Fourteen days is what is given as the time, thereafter we can look at the day in which our inauguration can take place and so we should have the patience to wait.
“I cannot say what’s happening in the MDC camp. There is all confusion and talking this, talking that, all rubbish . . . thinking that things which are impossible are possible. Wishes never are horses. So we had to wait but we are very happy that we have defeated the enemy.”
President Mugabe said Zanu-PF has done much to empower people since independence.
He said the revolutionary party introduced an education policy that had seen Zimbabwe becoming the country with the highest literacy rate in Africa.
He said that the party also initiated the land reform programme that had benefited thousands of black people.
Zanu-PF also exploited the blunders made by the MDC formations in the inclusive Government to devise its winning strategies. President Mugabe said Zanu-PF introduced several policies that had benefited people in an exceptional way.
“We introduced policies that assisted the lives of people immensely and in a positive way,” he said.
“We addressed the issue of ignorance through our education policies. We have addressed the issue of ownership of our resources through the land reform programme.
We have addressed the fact of development of our natural resources in order for our people now to benefit from the fight they have won.
“That is the fight which is ongoing, to get our people well provided with benefits from the natural resources and that is giving them a better state, making them wealthy where they were poor. We addressed the issue of development by providing programmes that are aimed at promoting various sectors of the country.
“Land — we have resettlement programmes, we have A1 and A2 commercial farmers and these programmes are ongoing,” said President Mugabe.
Through its policies, he said, Zanu-PF addressed industrial issues.
In this regard, the revolutionary party touched on issues relating to employer-employee relations.
“We supported the industry financially . . . we supported the relations also between the workers and the employers in the industry. We established trade unions and made them one where they were probably three competing organisations.”
President Mugabe said the MDC formations had no agenda except getting into power.
He said the MDC-T was so simple minded as to believe that by joining Sadc or any other international organisation, Zimbabwe had completely surrendered its sovereignty.
Zimbabwe was open to friendship and alliances on a reciprocal basis and joined organisations that would recognise its sovereignty as well as the sovereignty of other countries on an equal basis. President Mugabe said Zanu-PF had much more to offer young people not only through educating them, but also job opportunities and self-employment through indigenisation and empowerment across all our sectors.
He said the party had done a lot in uplifting women and would continue to free them from the grip of ancient customs that no longer served useful purposes.
Earlier, he addressed staff at the Zanu-PF headquarters who gathered to congratulate him for the party’s emphatic victory.
Online Reporter