Zimbabwe Party Rolls Out Campaign, Manifesto

Zimbabwe government prepares for national elections in July 2013. A new constitution has been approved by the House of Assembly and the Senate., a photo by Pan-African News Wire File Photos on Flickr.

Zanu-PF rolls out poll campaign, manifesto today

Friday, 05 July 2013 02:59
Farirai Machivenyika and Lloyd Gumbo
Zimbabwe Herald

ALL roads today lead to the historic Zimbabwe Grounds in Highfield, Harare, the cradle of nationalist politics where President Mugabe will launch the Zanu-PF manifesto and election campaign for harmonised elections due end of this month. Addressing his party’s Central Committee and Election 2013 candidates at the Zanu-PF national
headquarters in Harare yesterday, the President described the Zimbabwe Grounds as the “cradle of the revolution”.

The grounds hosted Cde Mugabe and Dr Joshua Nkomo upon their return from Mozambique and Zambia where they had led Zanla and Zipra combatants during the liberation struggle.

President Mugabe and other cadres were welcomed at Zimbabwe Grounds on January 27, 1980 by a crowd estimated at 1, 6 million by the Zanu-PF information and publicity department, 200 000 by BBC, 150 000 by the Rhodesian police and 1 million, with a safety margin of 25 percent, by people who said they arrived at the figure by enlarging aerial photographs and calculating crowd density.

Cde Nkomo had also addressed a massive crowd at the same grounds on January 13, 1980.

The crowd was estimated at 120 000 by the Rhodesian police, with PF - Zapu information and publicity secretary Cde Willie Musarurwa putting it at 300 000.

As such, the Zimbabwe Grounds are a hallowed site of the struggle for self determination.

President Mugabe yesterday told party cadres that Highfield was home to most of the revolution’s founding fathers, among them the late national heroes Dr Nkomo, Cde Herbert Chitepo and Cde Leopold Takawira.

The President has a house in Highfield where he has voted since 1980.

“I want to urge you to be present tomorrow (today) and to cause others to also attend tomorrow’s launch,” President Mugabe said in his closing remarks.

“We want the launch to be, some say resounding, thunderous and devastating to the enemy.

“Just as well, we are going to have this at a venue in Highfield which was really a maker of our revolution, a maker of our struggle.”

“So, it is the cradle, cradle, cradle in the sense of our revolution as well. We are going there to revive the past and to get that atmosphere of the past into the present and say a real campaign that will see us do very much better than we did in 2008.”

Earlier on, the President had said a number of policy pronouncements would be made at the launch.

“Tomorrow we will launch our campaign and naturally we will make announcements on some requirements we would want to go through the entire process of campaigning.
“We will in the course of the campaign emphasise certain approaches that need to be undertaken for us to be effective and yield at the end the numbers that will vote for us.

“Assess our constituencies and wards properly, get down to the people down to the grassroots, rallies — yes we will have but let’s learn that the most effective way of campaigning is that of talking to the people.

“To do that we should not just say ‘pasi ne MDC’ tinozviita kurally izvozvo. Narrate why Zanu-PF is a better party than the MDC-T, narrate the achievements of the party and the retrogressive activities of the MDC-T, expose them to the people,” he said.

The Zanu-PF election manifesto and campaign will run under the theme “Indigenise, Empower, Develop and Create Employment’’ with the catch phrase “Bhora Mugedhi/Ibhola Egedini” rallying the party to move in unison to resounding victory in the polls.

The theme captures the party’s empowerment thrust to move the nation’s independence from the political to the economic dimension in which foreign-owned firms are required by law to cede 51 percent stake to indigenous Zimbabweans.

The indigenisation programme has seen the establishment of Community and Employee Share Ownership Schemes.

Zanu-PF also spearheaded land reform to address colonial imbalances that resulted in land being transferred from 6 000 white commercial farmers to over 300 000 black families whose lives have since been significantly transformed.

The launch of the poll campaign and party manifesto comes on the heels of the party’s primary elections which saw a large turnout of party supporters.

Several recent surveys, as well as pronouncements from MDC-T’s traditional allies — among them the NCA, ZCTU, PTUZ, Zimbabwe Vigil, Sokwanele to mention just a few — have all pointed to a Zanu-PF victory in the July 31 polls.

Zanu-PF national commissar Cde Webster Shamu said gates at Zimbabwe Grounds would be opened at 6am to 9am for delegates from the country’s 10 provinces while Central Committee and Politburo members would arrive soon after.

He said national chairman Cde Simon Khaya Moyo would arrive next before Vice President Joice Mujuru who is expected to arrive between 11:25am and 11:30am.

President Mugabe — who is the guest of honour — would then arrive between 11:30am and 11:45am before delivering his keynote address.

All party candidates for the Senate, National Assembly and women’s quota were introduced to the party’s First Secretary and President yesterday.