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Masvingo Bureau
MDC-T leader Mr Morgan Tsvangirai yesterday said he was confident Zimbabwe would hold peaceful elections this year and urged supporters of political parties to shun violence. Mr Tsvangirai, who has often complained in the past that his supporters were victims of political violence despite evidence to the contrary, said President Mugabe, Deputy Prime Minister Authur Mutambara and himself had made an undertaking to make sure that the forthcoming polls were violence-free.
At a meeting with church and civic leaders in Masvingo, Mr Tsvangirai was confident the elections would be peaceful, insisting that sometimes political leaders had no control over rowdy elements.
“I am confident that we will be able to have peaceful polls.
“However, the problem sometimes is that when political leaders preach the gospel of non-violence, it might not permeate to the lower levels. I must stress that whoever may want to engage in violence will do so as an individual,’’ said Mr Tsvangirai.
He said Zimbabweans should not surrender their fate to foreigners but create the Zimbabwe they want.
One of the speakers demanded the presence of foreign observers from Africa and Western countries.
“We cannot always seek for solutions to our problems from foreigners like Sadc, the AU and other countries that are being talked about here. The global family of nations will look at us through the leaders that we choose for ourselves.
“It is our duty as Zimbabweans to ensure that we have a leadership that we want instead of seeking for help from outsiders. We have a generational responsibility to make sure that we have a leadership that we want,’’ he said.
Mr Tsvangirai also indirectly admitted that corruption was a problem in his own MDC-T party.
“The problem that we have now in this country is that anyone who is entrusted with political power will see that as an opportunity for personal aggrandisement. We now have endemic corruption in this country because whoever has power will be pre-occupied with looting what is around him or her,’’ he said.
Most MDC-T-run councils have become havens of corruption with greedy councillors accused of enriching themselves at the expense of service delivery.
In Masvingo, all the sitting MDC-T councillors who were elected in the last elections in 2008, were sent packing by the electorate in the party primary elections with allegations of corruption being advanced as reasons for their rejection.
Online Reporter