President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s visibly hopeless gathering of political parties that dismally lost the July 2018 harmonised elections met yesterday and appointed chairman of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission (NPRC) Justice Selo Nare and chairperson of the Gender Commission, Margaret Sangarwe Mkahanana, as co-chairs of the did called National Dialogue.
At least 18 parties including ZANU PF attended the meeting at State House in Harare.
Addressing journalists after the meeting, Mnangagwa said he had serious and focused discussions with the leaders of the parties some of whom polled no more than one percent of the votes in the elections.
Main opposition party, the MDC led by Nelson Chamisa which was declared to have lost by less than five percent of the votes, boycotted the talks citing several irregularities in the formulation of the dialogue.
“We had very serious and focused discussions this morning with the heads of political parties. All together we were 18. We have resolved that the question of moderator or convenor shall be two; the chairperson of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission Justice Selo Nare and the chairperson of the Gender Commission, Margaret Sangarwe Mkahanana, will be the other co-chair of the dialogue,” said Mnangagwa.
“We have agreed on the programmes that the three committees have recommended.
“We have adopted the recommendations they have made between now and the launch which is going to happen during the first week of May. These committees are going to put content into the launch for the actual dialogue on issues that we have identified.
“So we are happy that we are moving together with the rest of the political parties, except one or two who have not, but we and other political parties constitute the majority of the people in this country. If you put our vote Zanu PF and that of the others the six percent, two percent, one percent we are over 60 percent.”
President Mnangagwa said he was happy that the parties agreed as Zimbabweans that they should sit together to interrogate the challenges the country is facing.
“We have agreed that in the course of next week all the political parties participating in dialogue shall all be brought together to visit affected areas in Chimanimani and Chipinge. I think this is a very good idea.”
Justice Nare said political parties would be required to submit two names, a male and a female, of their representatives to the dialogue coordinating committee by Tuesday next week.