Self-exiled former Cabinet minister, Wal-ter Mzembi, says next year’s elections will once again mainly be a battle between Presi-dent Emmerson Mnangagwa and Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) leader Nelson Chamisa, with the latter up against it in the polls. Speaking to the Daily News from his South African base yesterday, Mzembi also said CCC would pose the only significant challenge to Zanu PF in those crunch elections — although it was the presidential ballot that would most likely cause national excitement again. This comes after Chamisa narrowly lost to Mnangagwa in the 2018.

This comes as more and more prominent people have added their voices to the growing calls for inclusive national dialogue ahead of the 2023 polls, to help end Zimbabwe’s decades-long myriad challenges. CCC bigwig, Tendai Biti, and exiled former Zanu PF political commissar Saviour Kasulcuwere recently said that elections alone would not resolve the country’s long-standing political and eco-nomic challenges. Speaking during a virtual Sapes discussion last Thursday, Biti said the country ideally needed to go to the polls in 2023 after having held inclusive dialogue. “Look, any solution to the Zim-babwean crisis that simply thinks that an election held one day can resolve 44 years of abuse, some would argue 100 years of abuse since 1890 … it’s not going to be possible. “So, we need genuine dialogue that must, however, ultimately end in a scenario where the citizens are allowed to choose their leaders. “We need dialogue that focuses on creating and recreating articu-lated common consensus, not the disarticulated and fragmented vision that we have at the present moment. “What does it mean to be a Zimbabwean? What kind of Zimbabwe do we want? What are our collective fears? If I am a war veteran what is my fear? If I am a worker from Chitungwiza, if I am a Ndebele citizen from Tsholotsho, what is my fear? Biti asked. “What is Gukurahundi to me? What is the alienation and ramification that I have gone through?

That conversation … is the conversation that we want. We need a real conversation as Zimbabwe,” he added. On his part, Kasukuwere -who is also living in self-imposed exile in South Africa – said it was high time Zimbabweans held national dialogue, because without this the country would remain stuck in crises. Meanwhile, Mzembi also said yesterday that although Mnangagwa’s government had made strides in the growth of the agriculture and mining sectors, there was a need to ensure that the earnings from these activities were fully accounted for and distributed equitably. “National productivity in the core pillars of mining and aagriculturehas eicked up if export earnings are a measure. “The main challenge here is plugging leakages and illicit ffinancialflows, as well as optimising and retaining earnings to improve local cash flows and redistributing the earnings equitably. “Zimbabwe has enough to go around to the poorest man, but the main challenge is now eequitability growth with equity and equal opportunity,” he said.

Regarding his own political ambitions, Mzembi said he still had much to offer in terms of leadership and would consider bouncing back into Zanu PF if he was invited to do so. “There are factionalists inside Zanu PF working tirelessly against rapprochement, who are seem-ingly insecure with inclusivity and generational competition. “Those who wield power are in a better position to exercise it in uniting rather than dividing, and in building rather than destroying. “The ball is in the court of those who wield power, not its victims. However, and that said, it takes two to tango. There must exist also in the virtues of reflection and forgiveness whilst remaining principled,” Mzembi said. “I don’t recognise the processes and illegalities of the November 2017 Zanu PF Central Committee that jettisoned me out of the party. “I still have a lot of political life in me. My political mind is at its supreme. The vision still intact. God willing, I will be back soon if the people call me to serve again, to which I will respond with the proverbial ‘Here I am’ – but guided by a new template of national, not partisan service,” he added.- DailyNews