President Mugabe’s inauguration speech Vice president Cde Joice Mujuru, Heads of State and Government, Former Heads of State and Government, Outgoing members of cabinet, Esteemed delegates representing various countries and organisations, Representatives of sister liberation movements and parties, Newly elected Members of Parliament, The Chief Justice and Members of the Judiciary, Senior Civil Servants, Representatives of War Veterans, Detainees, Restrictees and War collaborators, Representatives of the Business Community, Representatives of our Farming Community, Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Representatives of the Civil Society, Student activists, Invited guests, Comrades and friends. On behalf of the people of Zimbabwe, I wish to extend to you all a very warm welcome to this joyous occasion marking the end of our electoral processes, and the beginning of steps towards shaping a new administration which shall mind the affairs of our Nation for the next five years. In welcoming you, I am aware of the inconveniences you suffered from what really was a short notice to this event. Our invitations reached you very late, forcing you to set aside equally pressing commitments you may have scheduled for the same time. We apologise most profusely for this inconvenience created by certain Constitutional requirements that perforce precede the inauguration of the President-elect. We had to allow for petitions as required by our Supreme Law. Yet it is this positive response to this short notice on your part which attests to the deep affinities between you and ourselves. We are truly humbled and today our hearts are aglow with happiness which we readily share with you on this joyous occasion. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades and Friends, The just-ended harmonised polls whose high point we now gathered to celebrate, do mark and usher in a new Constitutional dispensation for our country, Zimbabwe. This poll is the first we have held under a new home-grown Constitution which has replaced that which we negotiated at Lancaster House with our erstwhile colonial masters, the British, in 1979. While the Lancaster House Constitution served us well as we moved from war to peace, from a settler colonial administration to black African self-rule, the passage of time and the sheer weight of emerging issues progressively made the document rather too old. We thus had to work on a new Constitution. Consequently, we sat together as a united people and produced a draft document that was subsequently endorsed by the majority of our people through a well-subscribed Referendum we held early this year. True, today’s event marks the inauguration of the President, but it is also a celebration of our new Charter which shall guide our society for the foreseeable future. A key feature of this Constitution is its blending of first-past-the post electoral approach and proportional representation. Elections for Presidency, for the Lower House or House of Assembly, and for Local Government are managed under first-past-the post principle, while membership of the Upper House or the Senate is drawn up on the basis of proportional representation based on votes garnered by each vying party, while recognising the Constitutional need for gender parity. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, comrades and Friends, I have no doubt that the days of our elections were quite engrossing, if not, nail-biting to some of you. The undue politicisation and publicity of our polling processes, the ominous auguries that stalked those harmonised polls, could have made you fear for us, indeed may have triggered deep anxieties regarding our prospects here. Routinely we were imaged as a society at war, a society riven by conflict. After all, the preceding elections of 2008 had been disputed on allegations of violence, itself a fertile backdrop to these rumours of war. Since that disputed poll, Zimbabwe had hung on an uneasy peace, indeed had tenuously held together on a fraught coalition, an inclusive Government of three uneasy partners. Genuine friends feared that the five uneasy years during which the coalition had survived — barely — would soon see Zimbabwe to this violent patch which had slurred its electoral honour. Our enemies and detractors sought to goad us toward such a self-destructive path. Happily, this negative augury, this hell-fire vision of Zimbabwe and its electoral prospects now stands confounded by the durable peace that reigns over this land. We have had peaceful elections. We have had free elections. We have had fair elections, with our Constitution allowing for any challenges from whomsoever. Well done Zimbabwe! We pledge to ensure that the peace we have built endures. And that the attainment of that peace we pay unstinting tribute to all our people who accepted the exhortations to peace from us all, who practiced and radiated it reciprocally in their immediate neighbourhoods. The result was local peace which built towards and fed into perfect national peace. I want to pay tribute to my partners in the Global Political Agreement for joining hands in these peace-building efforts. Equally, I salute church and community leaders who prayed for it, demonstrated it through personal example. I have no doubt that I continue to count on them all for durable peace that subsists for all times. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades and Friends, Except for a few Western dishonest countries, our elections have been hailed as peaceful, free, fair and credible. Sadc, Comesa, the African Union, the ACP, the United Nations as well as many nations of good will have praised our elections here. We welcome this positive spirit, this encouragement which should see us do even better, move forward faster as a nation. But like in all elections, there will always be bad losers, real spoilers. It is a part-price we pay for electoral democracy, indeed an inevitable phase in our growth as a people wedded to democratic practices. Where such a grousing stance remains non-antagonistic, where it expresses itself within the four corners of the law, it must be tolerated as part of the democratic tussle, part of the post-electoral adjustment. As of those odd Western countries who happen to hold a different, negative view of our electoral process and outcome, well, there is not much we can do about them. We dismiss them as the vile ones whose moral turpitude we must mourn. They are entitled to their views, for as long as they recognise the majority of our people endorsed the electoral outcome, indeed for as long as they recognise that no Zimbabwean law was offended against. And for us that is all that matters. After all, Zimbabwean elections are meant for Zimbabwe’s voting citizens. After all, Zimbabwean democracy is meant for the people of Zimbabwe who must, within set periods, go to the polls to choose and install a government of their choice. It is their sole prerogative and no outsider, however superior or powerful they imagine themselves to be, can override that right, let alone take it away from them. It is our inherent right. We fought for it when it was lost .We won it through our own blood. We keep it for us and posterity; we reserve forever as an expression of our sovereignty as a free people. Today we tell those dissenting nations that the days of colonialism and neo-colonialism are gone, and gone forever. The era of white colonial “whispers behind the African throne” passed on and got buried together with Lord Laggard the author of this anti-African, neo-colonial notion. Having struggled for our independence our fate has irrevocably orbited out of colonial relations, indeed can no longer subsist in curtsying and bowing to any foreign government, however powerful it feigns itself to be and whatever filthy lucre it flaunts. We belong to Africa. We follow African values here. We follow our conscience. We abide by the judgment of Africa as indeed, we did in 2008 when Africa advised us to set aside results of the disputed elections. Today it is Britain, and her dominions of Australia and Canada who dare tell us our elections were not fair and credible. Today it is America and her illegal sanctions which dare raise a censorious voice over our affairs. Yes, today it is these Anglo-Saxons who dare contradict Africa’s verdict over an election in Zimbabwe, an African country. Who are they, we ask? Who gave the gift of seeing better than all of us? Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades and Friends, With the elections now behind us, we can now focus on rebuilding our nation which has been ravaged by illegal sanctions imposed on us by the West. If yesterday the pretext for imposing those sanctions was to do with a deficit of democracy here, today we ask those culprit nations what their excuse is now? Whose interest are those sanctions serving? Zimbabwe is an open, friendly country. We seek friendship across geographies, across cultures, and quite often against past wrongs. We seek partnerships with all nations of goodwill, but partnerships based on sovereign, equality and mutual respect. Those are the sacred principles that upon which the global architecture, as defined by the United Nations, is founded. Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Comrades and Friends, Elections here were fought over the question of sovereignty gained in 1980 after a gruelling armed liberation struggle. Today the flag of that sovereignty flutters gaily in the winds of our spring. We sing our national anthem, itself a compendium of all that we aspire for, with full-throated ease. We have a government through which we define policies, itself the prime agent for implementing those same policies. That government reigns over our territory, its authority firmly felt to the remotest corner of our territory. We have sought the political kingdom, we have found it. But much remains to be done before we assume full sovereignty, well beyond the owning of politics, indeed beyond symbols and rituals of independence. Our resources have not yet fully come. Yes, we regained control over our land and our people are happy. Today they revel in the ownership of that land which has now come. They are beginning to use it profitably, using it for durable wherewithal. They have become key players in agriculture, proving that they are as good farmers as any in the world, once they have access to key inputs. It has been a key milestone. But our dominion goes beyond land. It extends to all those resources found in and on our territory, including those lying beneath our land, principally minerals. And nature has been generous, prodigal in fact, granting us oversized portions of almost all minerals that matter on earth. It has been a generous serve. The time has come for us to extend our dominion to all those resources which the Almighty has been so generous enough to give. That is the next revolution whose first step is this administration, this new Government. I stand before you as now a sworn President of Zimbabwe. My mandate comes from the just ended election which my party won resoundingly. But there are key truths that come with that victory, which come with that honour
Posted on: Sat, 24 Aug 2013 19:59:58 +0000
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