By Chief Felix Ndiweni : (transcript by ZimEye) Today is a historic date, it’s a very good date; it’s a wonderful date, we are here on the streets of London outside Downing steeet; the air is biting, it’s chilly chilly cold, we’ve got gloves on; we’ve got everything on but still we say we had to do it, to hand in the petition.

Why is it historic today? It’s historic purely because on this level…today is the first occurrence, the first opportunity the first occasion since 1979, when the last constitutional Chiefs from Zimbabwe, came to Downing Street, handed in anything in Downing street. That event happened in 1979.

The Chiefs who did that, were the late Chief Khayisa Ndiweni, and the late Chief Jeremiah Chirau. Those were the two chiefs who came to this place. Today we find ourselves having to once again come to this place to hand in a petition, once again, to have to engage the international arena, in particular to engage Her Majesty’s govt, the govt of the UK, to try and assist, to walk with us in our walk, to try and find a path through this

…particular difficulty that we have right now in Zimbabwe. Just as in 1979 exactly the same thing as in 1979; We are now faced with the situation of democracy; we are faced with the situation of rule of law; we are faced with a situation of lack of governance in that part of the world which is our country.

And this petition is specific because we are asking for the Zimbabwean diaspora to be allowed to vote; we want to engage the Zimbabwean diaspora so that they can vote and vote in a manner that is more than that is new, electronic voting there is no need whatsoever for the Zimbabwean diaspora to fly all the way back to Zimbabwe in order to cast a vote. That is ancient, that decrepit. It is full of corruption.

It could never work. We want the vote for the 5.5 million Zimbabwean diasporans scattered to the four winds of the earth to be able to vote and cast a vote we are very mindful that we have heard a recent reports that the Zimbabwe election commission has closed its doors for the month of December this month and exactly the time when Zimbabweans are making their way back home with the impetus with the need to make their vote, so when they arrive back in Zimbabwe they will find the commission doors closed they will not be able to register their vote they will not be able to cast their vote come 2023 so we are very tested by this, that is why we have come here on a cold day in London to Downing Street to hand this petition in but for us as I said earlier on the significance offered the significance is that once again a Constitutional Chief has had to come to 10 Downing Street to engage Her Majesty’s government for assistance in assisting us to find our way.