So we are aware of the crisis facing the nation and we are confident that we in the MDC have the capacity to steer the country to a path of stability and prosperity. Our sad national predicament stems largely from a crisis of legitimacy arising out of the stolen election of July 31, 2013. The tough lesson we have learnt is that we will not legitimize Mugabe by participating in a sham election in the absence key reforms that will protect the people’s will. We will never again participate in an election with a pre-determined outcome. Our national crisis can only be resolved by a return to legitimacy which can only happen after a fresh, credible election. The current national reality is that we are now isolated from meaningful investment, capital flow and substantial development financial assistance due to a crisis of legitimacy stemming from a sham election whose serious imperfections were noted by everyone, including SADC and the AU.. Zanu PF’s narrowly focused and confined “Look East” policy has not yielded direct fiscal support for the country. We have had a myopic foreign policy that overlooks the significance of the broader international community, thereby underplaying the potential of leveraging international relationships in a broad sense. We must once again rejoin the family of nations, in its wide scope, in mutually beneficial relationships, but largely driven, on our part, by the desire to enhance and further the interest of the ordinary citizen of this country. Zimbabwe needs friends, strategic partners and promoters in the region and across the breadth of the international community. Our international relations, even at the regional level, require fixing. We have been consistently inconsistent for so long that there are not many takers supporting our plans for the way forward. The safest bet is to shift our mindset towards new thinking and new pronouncements that are inclined towards mutually beneficial policies. The region and the international community, who all publicly acknowledged serious imperfections in our last election, must not unconditionally re-engage this Zanu PF government. The international community must not just re-engage without a framework; but must insist on implementation of agreed electoral conditions and the embracing of universally acceptable standards by the authorities in Harare. What we do not encourage is a mere re-engagement in the absence of a framework that plods and entices the nation towards the respect of full democratic values. The region and the international community must insist on the government in Harare respecting and implementing the national Constitution. They must insist on the need to respect the rule of law and the conditions sanctioned by SADC to ensure that the next election is vaccinated from the periodic mischief that has blighted the credibility of all our elections. Any re-engagement must be accompanied by a stubborn insistence by the international community on the universally accepted standards that ensure the guarantee of full freedoms and the enfranchising of the ordinary citizen. They must insist on key reforms that will ensure that the people put in place a legitimate government that will begin to address the challenges facing the nation. We in the MDC will play our part by insisting on the creation of those conditions that will give Zimbabweans a fresh bite of the cherry as only a legitimate government elected in a free and fair election is the basis of a permanent solution to the challenges we face as a nation. The solution does not lie in meekness and half-hearted attempts at creating a semblance of stability at the expense of democracy. I wish to restate here that as a party, we reserve our eight to mobilize the people and to support every sector that will engage in legitimate, peaceful and constitutional action to force this government to address the key national grievances that we all face regardless of our political diversity. Henceforth, we will be opting for boldness and not meekness. We would rather fight than wallow in oppression [truncated by WhatsApp]
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 13:55:27 +0000
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