ZANU PF leader, Emmerson Mnangagwa is trailing at 18% of the national vote, while Nelson Chamisa roars at 82%, in the last 34 hours alone according to the below poll. BUT WHO ARE YOU VOTING?
Terrence Mawawa
A Zanu PF Youth League member who is currently in China has claimed he is bringing home lucrative business deals set to reinvigorate the country’ s waning economy.
In his Facebook message at the weekend Brian Mudumi claimed the country was poised for a tremendous economic recovery.
” I had the privilege to be invited by the Mayor of Tongchuan City to the China National Ceramic Industry Conference.
I presented a topic on ceramic
industry opportunities in Africa .
I Learnt a few things :1- SMEs occupy much space in
the ceramic industry. 2- the gvts of China and
Thailand are supporting the ceramic industry through commercial and
financial instruments including banks .
The ceramic industry acounts for more than 2 billions
Chinese RMB. 4 The Chinese gvt has opened up
channels of exports in support of local SMEs,” wrote Mudumi.
“Investors are willing to come to Zimbabwe and
I am eager to assist those who are
interested in venturing into this industry,” Mudumi said.
The African Union and SADC have fully endorsed President Emmerson Mnangagwa;s presidency.
This was said by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Minister Retired Lieutenant General Dr Sibusiso Moyo.
Gen Moyo said this year’s Africa Day celebration is unique in that it takes place when the people of Zimbabwe, in peace, unity and harmony, resolved to rewrite the history of their country by ushering in the new dispensation.
Dr Moyo was interviewed by the state broadcaster, ZBC ahead of Friday’s 55th anniversary of the creation of the Organisation of African Unity now the African Union.
He thanked the SADC and the African Union for their understanding of the events in Zimbabwe and their unwavering support.
He said the visit to Harare by the Chairperson of the African Union Commission Dr Mussa Faki Mohamati in February this year and the SADC Executive Secretary Dr Stergomerna Lawrence Tax in March to pay tribute to the people of Zimbabwe, clearly demonstrates the African solidarity that was envisioned by the founding fathers way back in 1963 when they formed the OAU.
Dr Moyo said the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Trade in conjunction with the African Group of Diplomatic Ambassadors will on the eve of Africa Day host a dinner for key stakeholders and other pan Africanists to commemorate Africa Day under the 2018 AU theme: ‘Winning the Fight Against Corruption: A Sustainable Path to Africa’s Transformation’, a mantra that is in tandem with President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s new dispensation.
He said the celebration of Africa Day is a time to reflect on Africa’s successes and failures and challenges’, saying since May 1963 the AU has traversed on arduous journey which has led to the adoption of Agenda 2063 and its first 10-year implementation plan.
He welcomed the signing of the African Charter on Democracy, Elections and Governance which is testimony to the new dispensation’s commitment to democracy.
Zimbabwe’s signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area; the Protocol on the Free Movement of Persons and Single Africa Air Transport Market is also a sign of Zimbabwe’s commitment to the free movement of people, an integral part of Agenda 2063.
Minister Moyo also declared Zimbabwe’s unequivocal support for peace and unity in the continent and the need to silence the guns and resolution of conflicts, including the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic issue.
Terrence Mawawa
Zanu PF chairperson for Harare Province Goodwills Masimirembwa has predicted a humiliating loss for the opposition in the capital city.
Speaking in an interview with state broadcaster, ZBC after yesterday’ s rally in Dzivarasekwa Harare, Masimirembwa said the opposition would not win a single Parliamentary Seat in the capital.
“Morale is high in our party and we are ready to romp to victory, come election day.
We have done the necessary groundwork and this time we will trounce the opposition right here in the capital city,” said Masimirembwa.
“We all know that the opposition has nothing to offer to the people of Zimbabwe that is why we are hearing cheap political talk about the ruling party,” added Masimirembwa.
Terrence Mawawa
Veteran politician Sydney Sekeramayi has said the ruling party is ready to thrash the opposition in the coming elections.
Addressing party supporters in Mashonaland East Province at the weekend Sekeramayi said the ruling party would silence noisy opposition parties in the coming polls.
“As Zanu PF we are rejuvenated and raring to go.We are stronger than ever and we will reaffirm our political dominance in the coming elections.
Do you think we will lose sleep over the noise coming from the opposition ranks? We will certainly thrash the small parties that are bragging about their imagined popularity,” said Sekeramayi.
He added:” Let us remain focused on winning the coming elections.”
Terrence Mawawa| Hard-hitting Zanu PF critic Antony Taruvinga has postulated that the opposition will defeat the ruling party because President Emmerson Mnangagwa is a dull leader.
“I personally supported the November Coup that saw Mugabe leaving office.
With Mnangagwa at the helm, Zanu PF votes will be slashed by nearly 50%.
I knew Mnangagwa would not be as charismatic as his predecessor.
Mnangagwa unlike Mugabe, is a perennial loser and too unpopular to win a free and fair election despite being at the helm.
His speeches worsened by a jerky voice do not attract or lure supporters.
One can fall asleep while Mnangagwa is speaking because of his boring and content – free messages,” argued Taruvinga.
“His facial looks make everything worse. His dark history littered with abductions,
attempted genocide, corruption, unlawful land grabbing, hate and satanic speeches make
people dislike and fear him.
“Very few people want to be like Mnangagwa,” added Taruvinga.
By Paul Nyathi|MDC-T National Women’s wing chairperson Lynette Karenyi has declared her intentions to contest Chikanga – Dangamvura elections as an independent candidate after losing what she called a flawed primary election over the weekend.
The highly vocal and controversial former Chimanimani West legislature in the seventh parliament declared her intentions to go solo in a Facebook post on Monday.
According to Karenyi the primary election results do not reflect the wishes of the people of Chikanga and Dangamvura in Mutare urban. as only two wards out of ten in the constituency cast their votes.
Karenyi who through her years in the MDC-T has been a tough fighter against former President Robert Mugabe and ZANU PF also accused the opposition party of having an irregular electoral process.
Karenyi is popular for her detention in 2011 when she was arrested for saying that former President had same sex with two ZANU PF members.
She claimed that the party never had a proper voters roll and people were being picked in the streets, issued with party cards and brought in to vote.
Karenyi becomes the second MDC-T top female leader to stand against the party primary election system and declared intention to contest the upcoming elections as an independent.
Harare West legislator Jessie Majome was first to take the move last month when she declared that she was not contesting the party primary elections before declaring her intention to contest the seat as an independent.
Reports from within the party indicate that a few more MDC-T heavyweights could be making similar announcements soon.
Karenyi’s official statement rejecting the primary election read as follows:
Rejection of Chikanga-Dangamvura Primary Election conducted on 20th may 2018
I wish to announce that i will not be accepting any of the results or any means of trying to push me out of Chikanga-Dangamvura in an unfair way. The will of the people of Chikanga must prevail. Not the will of fraudlent people bent on party destruction.
In the meantime I have raised my concerns with leadership and hope we will find a workable solution
As a strong women, i normally take what life throws at me in stride, while protecting my values. It is my hope that those who support me and the community of Chikanga/Dangamvura will prove me right
While I am not short on reasons to distrust the electoral team that presided over the primaries. At this point I would urge all those supporting me to remain silent until we hear from the leadership, To those on the ground, ground work must be continued
I wish to convince all of you that I will not be doing anyone a favor by protecting those trying to subvert the will of the people.
By Own Correspondent| Zanu Pf is ready to accept election results including handing over power to the winner in the event that the party loses the forthcoming elections, Vice President, Kembo Mohadi said.
VP Mohadi, who for the past two months has been conspicuously absent from national functions due to ill health said his party cannot force itself into power since the people had the power to chose their favourite party to lead them.
“Zanu Pf is not the one that has the power, the power lies with people.
If the people vote us out they would have rejected us. If you lose an election you’d have lost and if you win you would have won. It’s simple as that,” he said.
VP Mohadi said this in an interview with a local publication where he dismissed allegations that the country was being run by the military or “junta.
VP Mohadi said Zanu-PF draws its mandate from the people through the ballot box and would accept any outcome of the polls.
“Zanu-PF is not run by the military and we are not in the barracks.
Of course, President Mnangagwa is a trained soldier, I am a trained soldier and VP (Constantino) Chiwenga is also a trained soldier because that was our generation. We all went to war because it was a requirement then to go and fight, but you can’t then say we are a military government because we have all since retired from the military,” he said.
Source: The Herald
By Own Correspondent| Former President Robert Mugabe will on Wednesday appear before the Mines and Energy Portfolio Committee to give oral evidence regarding the missing US$15 billion diamond revenue.
Parliament (Monday) issued a notice of Mugabe’s appearance before the committee chaired by Temba Mliswa, indicating that the former president had however not confirmed his presence.
“On the 23rd of May 2018, the Mines and Energy Committee is also expected, subject to confirmation, to receive oral evidence from His Excellency the former President of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Cde. R. G. Mugabe,” read the notice from parliament.
However, a local publication, The Newsday hinted that the hearing could be held at the former president’s residence in Borrowdale, the Blue Roof as a way of giving the former head of state respect due to his advanced age.
Chairperson of the committee, Temba Mliswa said his committee was comfortable with meeting Mugabe at his residence.
“The committee has already resolved that Kennedy Chokuda (Clerk of Parliament) must look at the issue of writing to Mugabe to appear before the committee, and there is pressure that there is need for transparency over the issue of the missing $15 billion revenue.
“Parliament is prepared to give the former Head of State respect and to meet him at his Blue Roof mansion because he is old,” he said.
Mliswa said the meeting was not meant to grill or humiliate Mugabe, but a fact-finding mission to break the puzzle over the missing diamond revenue, which the former leader alluded to at a public meeting in 2016.
…
By Own Correspondent| The figures of voters who cast their ballot in MDC T primaries versus the same who cast their vote in Zanu Pf primaries has torched a storm with commentators saying this is reflective and confirms that President Emmerson Mnangagwa will romp to victory in the forthcoming polls.
However, others argue that this is not true considering that most people who participated in Zanu Pf primaries did so out of fear.
NO SHOCKS COME JULY:
*Bindura South*
*MDC T MP Primary
Nyaude Bednock…280
Mandizha Thomas…177
Mushonga Dexter…85
*Total votes = 542**Zanu pf MP Primary
Matangira Remigios…4000
Dengu Leornard…2800
Annah Wayerera…1020
*Total votes = 7820 pic.twitter.com/LWAwW9MjRC— Nick Mangwana (@nickmangwana) May 20, 2018
https://twitter.com/muwanikrissy/status/998281602764550144?s=19
https://twitter.com/SAYIT86069920/status/998450873943674880?s=19
Difference is everybody, even MDC supporters, have Zanu cards (becoz nobody wants to be founded without one) and hence are Zanu members & can vote in Zanu primaries (most out of fear). But MDC has few members but more supporters than Zanu as you will see soon.
— Rabi Courage Mutero (@rabimutero) May 20, 2018
Perhaps you didn't know, I'll educate you now. Even here in Harare we hardly participate in Primary elections for security reasons. It's not easy for one to reveal their identity to zanu pf youths. Mentality yekuti muri mhondi lives wth us. Tonana ku election
— tinashe (@Tinashei1) May 20, 2018
I was in my rural home. Most mdc supporters went and vote in Zanupf elections and chose the weakest candidate. Ita steady hako
— ben (@nyeks123) May 20, 2018
Not so fast nick.I was "invited" to vote in your primaries in Harare East and I am not even a card carrying member.saw dozens more being handed $10 incentives to participate.#withmyowneyes
— Vee? (@mr_kay78) May 20, 2018
I guess you dont understand the difference between a mass party and a cadre party. Having more members will not win you an election against a party with less members but more supporters and sympathisers. Supporters and sympathisers in Zimbabwe are by far the largest group.
— Nyathi Bongani (@BONGANINYATHIM) May 20, 2018
By Paul Nyathi|The state run Herald Newspaper on Monday ran a long editorial taking swipe at MDC Secretary for legal affairs Senator David Coltart.
The daily took an uncalled for swipe at Coltart apparently because the MDC Alliance candidate for Bulawayo East had demanded the paper to withdraw a false story on Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa.
The editorial has received widespread condemnation from political commentators and analysts for its overly very personal attacks on the person of Coltart who is apparently one of the few highly respected politicians in the country.
Coltart retains a record of being the best Minister of Education in the country since independence.
The full editorial comment from The Herald reads as follows:
Indeed election times are upon us and these are interesting times when national discourse is centred on which political party has the vision, the stamina and indeed the depth of character to take our great country forward. In this rough political discourse, those who speak without applying their mind, more often than not, find themselves trying to apply the thought process way after it is too late.
One such character is former Rhodesian cop and MDC politician David Coltart. Coltart is a beneficiary of the colonial Rhodesian government that did everything in its powers, including spilling blood, to suppress the rights of the black majority.
The same Coltart was a beneficiary of the Zanu-PF goodwill policy of national reconciliation enunciated by former president Robert Mugabe at Independence in 1980.
The same Coltart is a beneficiary of the Constitution of Zimbabwe that gives him rights equal to all other Zimbabweans including those he spiritedly sought and still seeks to deprive their rights. Surprisingly, that does not seem to cross his mind or provoke his conscience.
He has never masked his distaste for majority rule in Zimbabwe, which he describes in his book as a continuation of Rhodesian tyranny.
Two weeks ago, before he left for London on his party’s trip of shame, he insulted Zimbabweans, stating brazenly, “For all Zanu-PF’s rhetoric about Zimbabwe being open for business, the one thing they have never learnt in 38 years of misrule is that the single most important factor in any investor’s decision to invest in a country is security of the investment.”
In other words, Independence has been bad for people like Coltart, and he is happy to campaign against investment in the country so long as the MDC continues to be rejected by the people of Zimbabwe.
Then in the past week or so, Coltart has sought to turn his frustration on The Herald, citing the Constitution of Zimbabwe, Section 61 (4) to be precise, by accusing the newspaper of bias. He deliberately ignores the fact that the same section of our supreme law gives public media the right to publish without interference from those suffering from a sense of racial superiority.
It is fact not fiction that Coltart has found the going hard in the MDC-T Alliance top echelons after he made an analysis of Nelson Chamisa’s performance during an interview on BBC HARDtalk, which did not go down well with Chamisa.
The poor fellow said what his master did not want to hear. Coltart, typical of those used to benefiting from all systems, he now wants to use The Herald as a smokescreen behind which to hide his real opinion on Chamisa’s performance.
His is nothing, but a blatant attempt to abuse the Constitution of the country by picking part of a section and leaving out the other parts. And, now he blames The Herald.
The Constitution is for us all. Yes, Coltart benefited from Rhodesia, Zimbabwe-Rhodesia and indeed Zimbabwe and now he thinks he can be taken as a neutral between Zanu-PF and the MDC-T Alliance. No!
It is just the Zanu-PF Government is too humane, too tolerant and too considerate. And people like Coltart know they can take advantage of that to traffic their quisling politics in the name of democracy.
It’s obviously something he wouldn’t do in Europe and America where nationalist politics is in ascendancy.
Freedom of expression, freedom of the media and all freedoms cannot continue to be reserved for a single person or political formation. Freedom should not be freedom only when it benefits David Coltart.
NO! Hiding behind The Herald is not a good idea. If Coltart is principled and said what he felt was the truth about Chamisa’s performance in London, he should stand by his opinion. That is what “democracy” is about or he should carry his own cross.
Mnangagwa Better Than Mugabe And Chamisa Better Than Mnangagwa
— ZimEye (@ZimEye) May 21, 2018
President Emmerson Mnangagwa lied when he claimed that he has entered into a private arrangement with the British government for a 100 million dollar bail out, according to the latest expose by the British embassy.
Mnangagwa announced to supporters in Mutare saying, “saka takutaudzana nemaBritish svondo rino (last week) nemusi wechipiri vakatipa $100 million kuti tibatsirike panyaya yedu yecash mukati munyika..”
Mnangagwa also claimed saying, “for the first time after nearly 20 years, we have received a soft loan from the British of $100 million and the (RBZ) Governor (Dr John Mangudya) has been telling me how he has disbursed the money and as from yesterday almost every single bank in the country had received part of the $100 million received.”
But a British Embassy official has said this is not true.
“What @CDCgroup announced this week is not a “British bailout” by any stretch of the imagination. It’s about providing much-needed credit lines to struggling Zim private sector on commercial terms. Not a cent of it is going anywhere near govt” wrote Simon Thomas Deputy British Ambassador to Zimbabwe
By Paul Nyathi|MDC-T President Nelson Chamisa who is also the MDC Alliance coalition Presidential candidate in the upcoming elections takes his country wide campaigns to Matabeleland South this week.
Chamisa who over the weekend called off rallies scheduled for Mberengwa and Zvishavane to give way to the MDC-T primary elections will be in the Matabeleland South capital, Gwanda, on Africa Day.
Most opposition political parties dread holding rallies in Gwanda town which does not normally provide the huge numbers.
Only former President Robert Mugabe normally filled up the stadium due to the financial backing on state resources that were used to bus people from around the Matabeleland South districts.
Before the rally in Gwanda, Chamisa will hold another rally in Maphisa growth point a few kilometres away from the notorious Bhalagwe Gukurahundi Concentration Camp where thousands of victims are buried in the disused mine.
No political party has ever held a major rally in the area since the Joshua Nkomo PF ZAPU era.
“It is because of the influence that has been perpetuated by some of our leaders who say they are leaders yet they are not leading us.
“The Nelson Chamisa cabal, so to speak, stopped most our members from coming to this launch by perpetrating political violence in different constituencies and areas in order to send a wrong signal that we don’t have people yet we have people. He is simply taking away power from the people and I want to announce this officially the launch of our BEST manifesto has been postponed indefinitely so that we are able to deal with housekeeping issues in our party.”
…
By Paul Nyathi|Sitting Bulawayo Mayor Councillor Martin Moyo was over the weekend left shell shocked when he was defeated in the opposition MDC-T primary elections.
Moyo who only last week expressed fears that he might lose the election though he wanted a second term in council was heavily defeated by little known Mr Tinashe Kambarami to represent the party in Ward 3.
Mr Kambarami, who is a member of the party’s youth assembly trounced Clr Moyo, receiving 170 votes to the Mayor’s 25.
Confirming the outcome of the primaries, the party’s provincial chairperson, Bulawayo Deputy Mayor, Clr Gift Banda said the process was ongoing with most of the wards in the city having been completed.
“The process is going on smoothly with some of the wards already having completed voting while some might go on until tomorrow (today),” said Clr Banda.
Other sitting councillors who lost in the primaries are Clr Gladys Masuku (ward 10) and Clr Nephat Sibanda (ward 16). Clr Sibanda lost to Ms Mildred Ncube. Clrs Mzama Dube (ward 25), Pilate Moyo (ward 11), Norman Hlabani (ward 26), Monica Lubimbi (ward 29), Lilian Mlilo (ward 12) and Macdonald Chunga (ward 14) all won and were confirmed as the party’s candidates in the local government elections. The six join Clrs Silas Chigora (ward four), Rodney Jele (ward 22), Concilia Mlalazi (ward 18), Clyton Zana (ward 19) and Mr Felix Mhaka (ward five), who were all uncontested.
Mr Mhaka replaces Clr Banda who will be contesting to represent the party in the National Assemby seat in Njube-Lobengula constituency. However, the party had to postpone the primary elections in Cowdray Park where the sitting councillor Clr Collet Ndhlovu was being challenged by his stepson, Mr Happyson Ncube, after Clr Ndhlovu and his supporters violently disrupted the vote counting process when he reportedly realised that the results were not going in his favour.
Party sources revealed that Clr Ndhlovu became violent, attacking Mr Ncube’s supporters vowing that the election will not go ahead.
In ward 16 where Clr Nephat Sibanda lost to Ms Mildred Ncube there were also reports of violence breaking out with Clr Sibanda allegedly being attacked by Ms Ncube’s son who was attempting to block him from observing the counting process.
ZANU PF leader, Emmerson Mnangagwa is trailing at 18% of the national vote, while Nelson Chamisa roars at 82%, in the last 28 hours alone according to the below poll. BUT WHO ARE YOU VOTING?
Raise Your Hand If You've Ever Seen A Chinese Pastor/Prophet Anywhere In The World!
— ZimEye (@ZimEye) May 21, 2018
By Own Correspondent| MDC Alliance leader, Nelson Chamisa Friday night cancelled his two rallies the first which was in Mberengwa on Saturday.
The development came less than 3 days after Chamisa’s spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka had announced his bosses full travelling schedule.
ZimEye arrived at the Mberengwa venue in good time early Saturday morning only to be told the rally is no more.
While the MDC leader’s phone at the time went unanswered, Mkoba, Gweru MP Hon. Amos Chibaya told ZimEye.com the rally has been cancelled.
” As I have told you, the rallies have been cancelled and this is because we are holding primaries at present,” he said.
He however appeared to confirm that the upcoming Matebeleland South rallies were still on schedule.
“Matebeleland South is on, ” he said.
Meanwhile, Advocate Chamisa the following day, Sunday night told ZimEye the rallies were truly “cancelled due to primaries.”
State Media – Vice President Kembo Mohadi has dismissed claims by some opposition parties that the Zanu-PF Government is under the control of the military and will use the army to resist handing over power in the event that the party loses the forthcoming harmonised elections.
In an interview with The Chronicle yesterday, VP Mohadi said Zanu-PF draws its mandate from the people through the ballot box and would accept any outcome of the polls.
“Zanu-PF is not run by the military and we are not in the barracks. Of course, President Emmerson Mnangagwa is a trained soldier, I am a trained soldier and VP (Constantino) Chiwenga is also a trained soldier because that was our generation. We all went to war because it was a requirement then to go and fight but you can’t then say we are a military Government because we have all since retired from the military,” he said.
“Zanu-PF is not the one that has the power but the power lies with the people of Zimbabwe and if the people vote us out they would have rejected us. If you lose an election you would have lost and if you win you would have won. It’s simple as that”.
VP Mohadi said Operation Restore Legacy, which culminated in the new dispensation, had the blessings of Zimbabweans who took to the streets calling for the former President Robert Mugabe to relinquish power.
“Zimbabwe has never experienced any coup. You call us a junta government and I don’t know what you mean because if you are talking of Operation Restore Legacy, it was not the army that took over, there was an uprising by the people and everyone was saying Mugabe must go, Parliament equally said Mugabe must go and those are the people that removed him from power,” he said.
The VP said the army did not force Mr Mugabe to resign.
“It was not the army. If it were the army they would have arrested him (Mr Mugabe). He is at his house with his family and everything is going on well.
“He was never molested and I don’t know where you are getting these ideas that we are a junta government,” he said.
Mr Mugabe convened a Press conference in March to a selected group of local and foreign media organisations and claimed that he was “unconstitutionally” deposed through a coup despite resigning ahead of imminent impeachment on November 21 last year.
He further claimed he was ready to talk to President Mnangagwa to right what he claimed was an “illegality.”
Mr Mugabe resigned after the military intervened to arrest a fast deteriorating socio-economic and political environment in the country, which naturally triggered the elevation of Mnangagwa, who by then had been elected as Zanu-PF’s First Secretary by the ruling party’s Central Committee, to the highest office in the land.
VP Mohadi said the nation is now focusing on preparing for free, fair and credible elections.
He also dismissed claims by the opposition MDC-T and its partners in the Alliance that Zanu-PF has planned to rig the outcome of the watershed plebiscite.
“I don’t know what rigging is all about just as good as I don’t how losing an election is all about. If the opposition is talking about Zanu-PF losing or rigging I don’t know how they arrived at that conclusion. How do we rig an election which is run by an independent body?” he asked.
“Zec (Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) is independent and there is no Zanu-PF member there who will be rigging elections in its favour.”
VP Mohadi said Zanu-PF and the opposition under the Constitution Parliamentary Committee (Copac), which was mandated with drawing up a new constitution for Zimbabwe by the Government of National Unity between 2009 and 2013, agreed to come up with an independent electoral body.
“If the opposition has issues pertaining to elections, Zec is there to verify what they don’t understand. We don’t run elections as Zanu-PF. How do we rig something that we don’t run? We are equal participants like them,” said the VP.
Zec chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba said this year’s elections cannot be rigged as the country’s voting system is foolproof.
She said the fact that the system is tamper-proof should ensure a free, fair and credible election that could not be rigged.
Zec has acquired a 100 percent secure Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) system.
BVR is a new voter registration system which captures an individual’s biometric features and ensures nobody can vote twice.
Justice Chigumba said members of the public with evidence that the voting system could be interferred with should bring it forward.
MDC-T leader Adv Nelson Chamisa recently told a rally in Nyanga that if the MDC Alliance did not win the coming elections that would be proof the ruling party had rigged them. He, however, failed to substantiate his claims.
President Mnangagwa has repeatedly assured the world that the harmonised elections, expected to be held in July this year, would be free, fair and credible.
The Government has invited observers from all over the world to see for themselves, with President Mnangagwa declaring repeatedly that “Zimbabwe has nothing to hide”.
Western countries like the United Kingdom and United States that were barred by the previous administration have also been invited this year, including Commonwealth representatives.
Opposition activists and Government critics, most notably fugitive former Cabinet Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo, have resorted to referring to the ruling party as Junta PF on social media.
The move is apparently meant to lay a foundation for a protest based on army interference if Zanu Pf wins the elections. – state media
At a time when the government and the reserve bank declare that $1 is equal to 1 bond note, a messeger from Safeguard Security Company has been arrested for swapping them.
The Bulawayo man has been arrested for allegedly stealing US$4 000 delivery money and replacing it with $4 000 bond notes.
Failure to count the money sold Kumbulani Davi (41) out after he allegedly delivered $4 010 to his employer instead of $4 000 payment from Old Nic Mine.
Davi was not asked to plead to theft charges when he appeared before Bulawayo magistrate Ms Adelaide Mbeure.
The magistrate granted him $100 bail and remanded him to May 24 for trial.
Prosecuting, Mr Tawurayi Hondoyemoto said Davi, a trusted messenger of the company under the accounts department, was sent to collect US$4 000 from Old Nic Mine, money for contractual security services rendered to them.
“Davi’s duties included delivering invoices and collecting payments from the company’s clients and handing it over to his employer. On May 11, the accountant at Old Nic Mine, Sethi Nyazenga contacted Safeguard’s credit controller Chester Chamunorwa Machiya to send a messenger to collect $4 000 monthly collection,” he said.
“On May 14, Davi was sent to collect the money from Old Nic Mine. He was given two sealed packs of United States dollars which contained a total of 200 notes in $20 denominations.
“On the same date, Davi handed over $4 010 in denominations of $5 and $2 bundles bond notes to his company.
“The money was verified and it was discovered that there was an extra $10. The paying officer at Old Nic Mine, Tracy Gambakwe, was contacted and notified of the excess $10.”
The court heard that she said it was impossible for the denominations to be in excess as she had handed US$20 by 200 to Davi.- state media
He was stitched at Siabuwa Clinic before being referred to Binga District Hospital for further treatment. Ms Tlou Dube, who recently relocated to Zewula village, under chief Siabuwa, from Bulawayo, was walking with a friend only identified as Mbimbi when she committed the cultural taboo.
The incident occurred last Wednesday at Siabuwa Business Centre and was reported to the police.
Chief Siabuwa said he was at the business centre when he saw the two teenagers who were dressed in “very short dresses” and approached them to counsel them on proper dressing to preserve their values and morals.
“As I spoke to them, Dube walked away, telling her friend to walk on and not listen to nonsense. I told her to go if she felt I spoke nonsense and leave the other girl to listen to what I had to say. I re-introduced myself and even produced my identification card thinking maybe she was not aware of who I was.
“She continued to yell at Mbimbi and returned to where we stood, picked up an empty bottle of beer from the ground and hit me right in the face. Well, I hope the teenagers will get real counselling to restore their values and morals which they seem not to have at all,” he said.
Chief Siabuwa said he had found the teenagers’ behaviour grossly disrespectful and irritating and had tried to talk sense to them.
“The teenagers were walking in a public place, indecently dressed and so I tried to warn them for their own protection because that could result in them being abused by men. In our society and culture, females don’t dress in the manner they did,” said the area chief.
Chief Senator Siansali said Ms Tlou recently relocated from Bulawayo to live with her grandmother in Zewula village.
He said the girl was probably not aware of the difference in culture and morals between Bulawayo and Binga.
“She also may have not been aware of the importance of the chief’s status as a community leader. Their dressing didn’t suit our Binga community and the chief tried to warn them to protect them as that is one of a traditional leader’s roles in the community.
“The teenagers’ behaviour was unfortunate. It’s unheard of in our culture.
“It may have been a result of influence from morally decadent cultures from other countries. As a nation, we need to reform ourselves to avoid becoming what we are not,” said Chief Siansali. -state media
ZANU PF leader, Emmerson Mnangagwa is trailing at 18% of the national vote, while Nelson Chamisa roars at 82%, in the last 17 hours alone according to the below poll. BUT WHO ARE YOU VOTING?
By Farai D Hove| The state owned newspaper, the Herald did not tell the truth when they claimed that military Commander Valerio Sibanda attended President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Saturday rally.
It has emerged from footage at the Sakubva stadium and that from the Chitepo barracks that the Herald, published pictures from the Chitepo barracks presenting them as if they were from Sakubva. ZimEye.com has since verified that Gen Sibanda did not t all show up at the ZANU PF rally as state media claimed, and footage from the Chitepo barracks can be seen below.
Terrence Mawawa, Masvingo
A Masvingo based Non Governmental Organisation has pledged to campaign for President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s ruling party Zanu PF.
Zimbabwe Revolutionary and Patriotic Youth Network- ZIRIPAYON has already unrolled programmes meant to drum up support for Zanu PF.
Below is the organisation’ s statement:
Zirapayon shall hold a clean up campaign in Bikita District on 25 May as a way of standing in solidarity and in support of Bikita West Zanu PF Candidate Cde Elias Musakwa then on 26 Saturday May the ZIRAPAYON clean up campaign will be in Bikita East at Chikuku in support of Cde Madhuku. The dates for the Bikita South programme will be announced soon.
ZIRAPAYON will visit all districts in Masvingo Province and the information desk will update you on dates and programs.
As Zirapayon we promise to leave no stone unturned in making sure that party candidates in Masvingo province and the President Cde ED Mnangagwa win the elections.
The time is now
The new dispensation is real.
UPDATE – Following complaints on the article published in the morning, the state owned Herald newspaper, has alleged that the military commander, Valerio Sibanda attended ZANU PF leader, Emmerson Mnangagwa’s political rally on Saturday. The Herald furthered this in bold imprint as is seen below.
This article is an update of the earlier piece in which Gen Sibanda was reported by the state media to have attended the ZANU PF rally in Mutare. PICTURES:
By Terrence Mawawa| Hundreds of school pupils were allegedly forced to wear Zanu PF t-shirts as the ruling party desperately sought to reflect an impression of massive popularity.
The Children Of War Veterans Association (COZWA) reports that school pupils in and around Mutare were given Zanu PF regalia before President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s rally at Sakubva Stadium.
Mnangagwa appeared on national television boasting of the ruling party’ s huge support base in Manicaland Province.
Teachers in Mutare yesterday claimed Zanu PF officials forced pupils from schools in Mutare to wear ruling party t-shirts.
“Our pupils were forced to wear Zanu PF t-shirts yesterday.Hundreds of school pupils attended the rally clad in ruling party regalia,” said a teacher who declined to be named.
By Own Correspondent| At a time when MDC Alliance leader, Nelson Chamisa was labelled a childish dreamer, the United States has adopted his breakthrough road interchange concept, the kind that will see a reduction in 60% of all road accidents.
Chamisa was in London 2 weeks ago labelled a nonsensical dreamer following his preaching of the concept of spaghetti interchanges meant to ease traffic catastrophes in Zimbabwe. Coincidentally, Chamisa’s arguable ‘predecessors’ on “dreaming”, the Wright Brothers were insulted in the same city, London in 1903, when they invented humanity’s first ever aircraft, at a time when British scientists were declaring that it is impossible for a metal object to fly in the sky and it is impossible for a vehicle to travel at the speed of 36 miles per hour without choking the person who is in it, as ZimEye reveals.
This time, the US has embarked on an ambitious project for a spaghetti Road interchange of it’s kind. The breakthrough concept will see a reduction in 60% of all road accidents in the United States of America… WATCH BELOW:
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The future is diamond ? pic.twitter.com/PH9Vykv5WU
— CNET (@CNET) May 17, 2018
Terrence Mawawa
The ruling party Zanu PF has accused the country’s main opposition party MDC of perpetrating acts of political violence in the country.
Zanu PF Youth League Secretary for Administration Tendai Chirau described the MDC as a violent party.
Speaking at a 2018 election symposium, Chirau said:
“There is a certain political party that is actually saying if there are no electoral reforms they are going to buy beer for the youths and they will go into the streets.
“So we have certain political parties that believe youths can be given money to cause violence.
There is nothing democratic about MDC-T, it’s a pseudo-democratic party that instigates violence,” he said.
Terrence Mawawa
Harare Giants Dynamos FC have failed yet again to break the FC Platinum jinx at the ceremonial home of football- Rufaro Stadium.
The Glamour Boys who are grappling with a dismal run of form have failed to beat their bogey side FC Platinum- succumbing to a 0-2 this afternoon.
Castle Lager Premier Soccer League Full Time Results:
Highlanders 0-0 CAPS United
Dynamos 0- 2 FC Platinum
Shabanie Mine 0- 1 Chapungu
Triangle United 0- 1 Black Rhinos
Mutare City Rovers 1 – 1 Herentals.
Terrence Mawawa
Highlanders coach Madinda Ndlovu and Caps United gaffer Lloyd Chitembwe have expressed mixed sentiments on the epic encounter between the two giants.
The match between Bosso and Caps United at Barbourfields today has ended in a drab goalless draw.
Madinda said:”I am happy with the result.These games are never easy.The fans have witnessed an entertaining match.
We knew they would throw everything at us and we were prepared for a very tough game.
I cannot blame my players for the result.We will now focus on the next match. ”
The camera shy Chitembwe on the other hand said:”We created numerous chances and we failed to capitalise on them.
They did not create as many chances as we did.”
By Own Correspondent|A Kariba based security guard has been hauled before the courts for sodomising a 14 year old boy sixteen times.
The 32 year old guard appeared before magistrate Toendepi Zhou facing aggravated indecent assault charges and he was remanded out of custody until May 30 2018.
Prosecutor Phillip Urayi told the court that the guard, who cannot be named to protect the minor, started sodomising the 14 year old in November last year.
The accused, who is also a junior trainer at Kariba Junior Club lured the minor whom he was paying $30 monthly for his “services”, the court heard.
The act was only exposed on 13 May 2018 when the brother of the victim caught them red handed and upon further investigation, they revealed how it had all started.
The court heard that the brother of the minor had been monitoring the suspects’
movements which were suspicious before he caught them red handed in the act in the bedroom.
He told the court that he was alerted about the intimate relationship between his brother and the guard who is also his nephew and had confronted them but they had denied it.
It was after he caught them that he quizzed them about their affair and they disclosed how it had started.
He reported the case to the police leading to the guard’s arrest.
The subject of skin bleaching took to higher levels Sunday morning, when people described the current government under the title. The “artificial” mushrooming of political parties which has seen more than 128 parties most being formed in less than 6 months’ time has been described as such. The below fiery comments came soon after a mystery woman launched her own party.
ZANU PF leader, Emmerson Mnangagwa is trailing at 18% of the national vote, while Nelson Chamisa roars at 82%, in the last 7 hours alone according to the below poll. BUT WHO ARE YOU VOTING?
By Own Correspondent| The leader of Zimbabwe’s latest political party, the woman who announced her new political party during the week, told reporters there is nothing like vote rigging in Zimbabwe.
Ms Carol Nyereyegona, who says her party is called the Chief’s Party, opened her presser by thanking President Emmerson Mnangagwa “for overseeing an environment where all parties can campaign, we’ve been able to campaign peacefully,” she read out her statement.
She was asked to reveal her membership and at least the number of followers she commands, and she replied refusing to reveal her own party members; failed to reveal even just one.
She was asked on her views about vote-rigging and her reply was, she does not see any vote rigging, real or perceived in the preparations for the upcoming elections.
She was at first asked to reveal her membership numbers and she said, “well we have(sic), we count our membership on areas, for example we have met most of the chiefs, and we have met many herdmen, many villagers, so we have gone as far rural as we can,” she said.
When asked to disclose some of the chiefs in her party, she replied saying, “at this time, errrm, I would rather they mention it if they wish. There are, I don’t know, maybe six months ago I happened to speak with some of the herd chiefs and they were very pleasant to me, very nice. This is why I mentioned earlier that chiefs should not be criticised because they really are criticised by everybody for no real reason, because all they want to do is maintain their areas. They have to contend with district councils as well, there is a lot that they have to contend with and if we happen to succeed, we will have provincial governments, we will make sure that those municipalities, governments are reliable, we would have chiefs as senators, ladies and men chiefs, so we really want to include them as many as them as we have as, as much as possible.”
When asked on what is new about her political party which 127 others are failing to provide the people, she mumbled and fumbled a little, and then said she would be a practical leader and she talked about improving hospitals among other things.
She was asked on her views on what challenges female politicians are facing in Zimbabwe and she emphatically replied saying, “none!”
So who is Carol ? She was asked on her profession and she replied saying she’s a veterary doctor. “I am a vetenary doctors, been a doctor for 30 years, errm, I’m also a businesswoman, been a businesswoman for about 20 years and I just got the calling to for this party. I am very happy that we have a chief’s party, and very happy that we are running in elections.
When asked on what challenges she sees women having in politics, she said there are none.
She replied saying, “none.”
She concluded by saying that she sees no problem with media access by opposition parties. See video below:
ZANU PF leader, Emmerson Mnangagwa is trailing at 18% of the national vote, while Nelson Chamisa roars at 82%, in the last 7 hours alone according to the below poll. BUT WHO ARE YOU VOTING?
By Lloyd Msipa| I listened and I watched Dr Ibbo Mandaza’s presentation at the just ended ERC symposium on peace and the 2018 elections in Zimbabwe. In a commentary on Zimbabwe’s state of readiness for the harmonised elections, Dr Mandaza says the political freedoms that Zimbabweans are enjoying today is a result of a degenerated ZANU PF party and State.
The perceived freedoms are a result of the inability of the ZANU PF government being unable to control or stamp its authority on the freedoms prevailing in the country. I disagree. To the contrary, the arrival of the Emmerson Mnangagwa government following last years power transfer has been such a refreshing political development in Zimbabwe since 1980. In fact, the regeneration of political freedoms speak of a political party now so sure of itself such that it doesn’t have to resort force or cohesion.
The fact that the opposition has been able to travel and campaign the length and breadth of the country speaks of a transforming political culture in Zimbabwe. The prevailing political freedoms are clear evidence that ZANU PF has transformed itself from the monster it had become under Robert Mugabe to a liberal political party that respects the rights of its citizens to associate freely with the political party of their choice. To suggest that the prevailing political freedoms are a result of a lose of control by ZANU PF is not only foolish, but suggests that the speaker has a more sinister agenda by selling such a warped narrative.
To confirm the incongruence of that statement, Dr Ibbo goes on to to say it is because of these freedoms that ZANU PF is weak and will lose. That the degeneration of ZANU PF and the state happened sometime in the 1990,s and according to him it got worse under the Mnangagwa administration. What a warped analysis.The truth of the matter is ZANU PF and the State under Emmerson Mnangagwa, has regenerated and established freedoms that had become non existent in Zimbabwe, established a free political environment that the world has taken notice of. This is a significant development. The political environment prevailing in Zimbabwe and the disabling of past oppressive legislation through amendments in parliament has not gone unnoticed by international financial institutions.
They have suddenly developed the confidence to lend money to Zimbabwe after two decades of isolation. Internationally, countries that considered Zanu-PF as a repressive political party have suddenly transformed and are happy with the same political party.
The same countries that considered ZANU PF and the Zimbabwe government incapable of running a free and fair election have suddenly transformed overnight all A’s a result of efforts put by the incumbent president, a president who listens to the citizen and above all a president who knows that the “Voice of the people, is the voice of God”. Dr Ibbo Mandaza is a respectable academic, but like all humanity, we sometimes get it wrong. This is one of those instances.
After trying to impose her own parliamentary candidate, President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s wife, Auxillia is seen in the below video, in the 4×4 vehicle which quickly drives away fleeing an angry crowd in Mvuma. The furious crowd of ZANU PF supporters continues to sing: “we will simply humiliate you by kicking the ball into the bush!”
VIDEO: Auxillia Mnangagwa Chased Out Of Mvuma | WHAT'S THE LESSON HERE?
— ZimEye (@ZimEye) May 20, 2018
“It is because of the influence that has been perpetuated by some of our leaders who say they are leaders yet they are not leading us.
“The Nelson Chamisa cabal, so to speak, stopped most our members from coming to this launch by perpetrating political violence in different constituencies and areas in order to send a wrong signal that we don’t have people yet we have people. He is simply taking away power from the people and I want to announce this officially the launch of our BEST manifesto has been postponed indefinitely so that we are able to deal with housekeeping issues in our party.”
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By Showbiz Reporter| Zimbabweans made mirth of the Zimbabwean daughter of a ZANU PF farmer Charles Davy, Chelsea, who appeared at her ex boyfriend’s wedding on Saturday.
The above picture was circulated with many Zimbabweans expressing how her face was conspicuous in photographs at the royal function. “Would you attend your ex’s wedding like this?,” asked one Les Moyo commenting on the above photograph.
Prince Harry and Chelsea dated each other between 2004 and 2007. They later broke up and went their separate ways. The Zimbabwean beauty, Chelsea’s mother once represented Zimbabwe as Miss Rhodesia in the 70s.
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Hwange Colliery Company Limited (HCCL) managing director Thomas Makore’s suspension was triggered by an extortion scandal involving a ZBC journalist and one of the struggling miner’s senior executives, it has emerged.
Bruce Chahwanda was reportedly caught red-handed by police after allegedly receiving $65 000 from HCCL company secretary Allen Masiya.
Masiya was accused of leaking confidential information to Chahwanda, which the journalist allegedly used to blackmail Makore.
Chahwanda and Masiya are out on bail and will re-appear in court on May 26.
Makore was suspended last Monday for alleged insubordination, bribery and corruption.
According to HCCL sources, Makore has since offered to resign “in the best interest of the company and national interest”.
“The managing director’s contract was due to expire in the middle of 2019,” the source said.
“The strategy and vision to return Hwange Colliery to its glory days is achievable with the will, heart and conviction to do what is right.
“Other influences have been architecting the recent negative press about the MD.”
Makore was summoned to the police after Masiya allegedly reported that he had stolen his laptop.
However, the HCCL boss’s lawyers said the laptop had been taken by the MD for “safe-keeping”.
The sources said Makore had initiated a disciplinary process against Masiya, which led to his suspension on May 10 before the tables were turned against the MD.
“The board commenced an investigation after advice from lawyers, which led to the suspension from work of the managing director and the lifting of the suspension of the company secretary despite the board’s press statement that
. . . .‘allegations of impropriety had emerged following a dispute between two senior company officials’,” the source added.
“Hwange Colliery has not been performing for a long period.
“The $200 million that is alleged to have been siphoned from Hwange Coal Gasification in which Hwange Colliery has a shareholding matter emerged more than five years ago.”
The sources alleged that there was a political dimension to Makore’s suspension.
The Hwange MD joined the company in 2014 and his backers say claims that he ran down the country’s biggest coal producer are not true as he had initiated a number of projects that had begun to bear fruit.
Source The Standard.
By Paul Nyathi|MDC President and MDC Alliance coalition government Vice President hopeful professor Welshman Ncube has joined the brigade of presidium hopefuls not contesting the national elections.
In an interview held with the state run Sunday News on Friday, Professor Ncube revealed that he will not be contesting in any of the constituencies seconded to his MDC party in the MDC Alliance coalition.
As was said by the ruling ZANU PF current Vice Presidents Constantino Chiwenga and Kembo Mohadi who did not contest the party primary elections, Ncube said he will also only help co-ordinate and campaign for his party candidates and MDC-Alliance presidential candidate, Nelson Chamisa.
Mohadi and Chiwenga also revealed that they will not be contesting their party candidacy elections but will be campaigning for the party alongside with the ZANU PF presidential candidate Emmerson Mnangagwa hoping to be re-seconded into their current Vice President positions.
The move by Prof Ncube has equally raised questions on his relevance, post-elections as he is the only party principal in the alliance who is not gunning for a seat.
MDC-T president Mr Chamisa is the alliance’s presidential candidate while other principals are standing as either MPs or Senators in the seats that have been reserved for their parties.
The MDC Alliance is made up of seven political parties, MDC-T, which is led by Mr Chamisa, PDP (Mr Tendai Biti), MDC (Professor Welshman Ncube), Transform Zimbabwe (Mr Jacob Ngarivhume), Zanu Ndonga (Mr Denford Musiyarira), Multi-Racial Christian Democratic Party (Mr Mathias Guchutu) and Zimbabwe People First (Retired Brigadier-General Agrippa Mutambara).
“I am certainly not contesting. I think you have seen that the MDC has published its list of the candidates for the National Assembly and my name is not there so that tells you I am not running for the National Assembly seat nor am I running for Senate nor the Proportional Representation. So you will not find my name in any of them,” he said.
Prof Ncube however declined that he was angling to become a deputy to Chamisa as he was already a leader of a party — MDC.
“I am already one of the seven principals in the alliance so why should I be a deputy?” he said.
Sources within the party however revealed to ZimEye.com that Ncube is definitely set to become Chamisa’s Deputy as his party and Biti’s PDP are set for a historic unification immediately after the elections regardless of the outcome of the elections.
The below poll ran by the UK based Elisha Buffet, claims Emmerson Mnangagwa is managing a paltry 19% of the votes, while Nelson Chamisa gets 81%.
MDC president Professor Welshman Ncube will not contest for any position in the forthcoming elections and will only help co-ordinate and campaign for his party candidates and MDC-Alliance presidential candidate, Mr Nelson Chamisa.
The move by Prof Ncube has raised questions on his relevance, post-elections as he is the only party principal in the alliance who is not gunning for a seat. MDC-T president Mr Chamisa is the alliance’s presidential candidate while other principals are standing as either MPs or Senators in the seats that have been reserved for their parties.
The MDC Alliance is made up of seven political parties, MDC-T, which is led by Mr Chamisa, PDP (Mr Tendai Biti), MDC (Professor Welshman Ncube), Transform Zimbabwe (Mr Jacob Ngarivhume), Zanu Ndonga (Mr Denford Musiyarira), Multi-Racial Christian Democratic Party (Mr Mathias Guchutu) and Zimbabwe People First (Retired Brigadier-General Agrippa Mutambara).
In an interview on Friday, Prof Ncube said he was not contesting for any position in the forthcoming elections.
“I am certainly not contesting. I think you have seen that the MDC has published its list of the candidates for the National Assembly and my name is not there so that tells you I am not running for the National Assembly seat nor am I running for Senate nor the Proportional Representation. So you will not find my name in any of them,” he said.
Prof Ncube also said he was not angling to become a deputy to Mr Chamisa as he was already a leader of a party — MDC.
“I am already one of the seven principals in the alliance so why should I be a deputy?” he said.
The alliance has also been dogged by power struggles resulting in the parties failing to come up with neutral colours and symbols to use for the campaigns. In Kenya, the National Super Alliance (Nasa) formed by opposition political parties led by Mr Raila Odinga adopted a single colour branding with all the parties in the coalition dropping their respective regalia.
Prof Ncube, who is also the alliance’s spokesman said campaign regalia will be in two forms — red for the presidential campaigns and respective party colours for other campaigns such as Parliamentary and Senatorial. MDC-T’s brand colour is red while MDC-N is branded in green, PDP’s colours are orange, Transform Zimbabwe (blue), ZimPF (white) while Zanu-Ndonga does not have defined party colours.
“The presidential campaign material, that is to say the t-shirts, berets, posters and pamphlets, will obviously be branded in red, the colour of the MDC-T where our presidential candidate is coming from. In respect of our candidates’ campaign at Parliamentary level as well as at ward level, the candidates and the parties are at liberty to use all of the seven colours of the alliance,” he said. The alliance is also grappling to consolidate the ideas from the seven parties to come up with a manifesto.
Other major players in the coming elections, Zanu-PF and the MDC formation led by Dr Thokozani Khupe, have already launched their manifestos.
Prof Ncube said the alliance had put in place a policy and research committee that was spearheading the process of coming up with the party’s manifesto. He was, however, non-committal on when the alliance planned to launch its election manifesto.
“We have a policy and research committee which is chaired by Tendai Biti. That committee in consultation with the other committees and the principals has been working on two documents. The first document is a comprehensive detailed policy document. That committee is also working on the second document, which is an abridged version of the bigger document which will become the manifesto that we are going to launch and present. So at some point in the next few weeks we will set a date for the launch of the two documents, the comprehensive policy document and the manifesto. So it is work in progress, which we hope to complete as soon as possible and hopefully before an election is proclaimed,” he said.
The MDC Alliance has threatened to crack on several occasions, with Transform Zimbabwe leader Mr Ngarivhume at some point threatening to quit the coalition over allocation of Parliamentary seats among the seven political parties. Reports have indicated that MDC-T was also selecting candidates in seats that are already reserved for other parties. – state media
State Media- President Mnangagwa says he will announce dates for the harmonised elections within the next two weeks, signalling that the ruling party should engage in overdrive campaigns designed to both lure voters and consign the other contesting parties to the political dustbin.
The President’s statement comes as Senate passed the Electoral Amendment Bill last week, paving the way for a credible plebiscite.
The milestone development by Parliament empowers the President to sign the legislative changes into law and subsequently proclaim dates for the nomination court sitting and the actual polls.
Addressing a bumper crowd at Sakubva Stadium yesterday — gathered in haste at a side event to the renaming of the Headquarters 3 infantry Brigade Barracks to Herbert Chitepo Barracks — President Mnangagwa said he would proclaim election dates by month-end.
“Ikozvino tiri muhurumende itsva yandinotungamira nemakurokota andinawo pano, mamwe haapo,” he said.
“Panapa tina vaVice President vaChiwenga (Constantino), vaMohadi (Kembo) havapo, pane musangano wavari kuinda kuGwanda nhasi (yesterday).
“Tigova nemakurokota mazhinji muchaavona kana tave kuita macampaign, atanga kupera kwemwedzi uno.
“Handingadudzire zuva (rema elections) nhasi, zvinofamba neronga handiti?
“Toti isu pachivanhu chedu, kana ukateya riva mugomo ukavona makabatwa hove, inda unoshopera zvinenge zvisina kufamba neronga.
“Ukaisa duvu mumvura kuti ubate tsuro wowana muine tsuro, inda kumaporofita unobvunza kuti zvakafamba sei kuti mupinde tsuro, pane akaisa.
“Saka ndozvazviri, zvinofamba negwara, neronga.”
Added President Mnangagwa: “Asi Zanu-PF, ndinokuvudzai kuti kupera kwemwedzi uno, tichange tichiita proclamation, kuti munyika muno muchava nema elections kuti campaign igotanga nemutsindo.
“Tozovuya kuno ku Manicaland toita campaign zvino yokuti mikono ndiani muno munyika, zvobuda pachena,” he said.
President Mnangagwa thanked Zimbabweans for the peaceful transition in November last year.
He said he had to skip the country after he was fired by former President Mr Robert Mugabe on November 6 last year as his life was under threat.
“Asi kubva November last year tinokutendai ne runyararo rwakaitika panguva iyoyo musi wa, I think, 18 or 19 November last year nekuti ndakanga ndaita border jumper, ndakajamba ne makomo iwaya, ndakayambuka makomo aya vaakuda hupenyu hwangu, asi kana zuva rako risati rasvika unorarama.
“Saka ndinokutendai pa transition yakaitika, yakaitika murunyararo, hapana ropa rakateuka, former President wedu va Mugabe vakaita step down, Central Committee yedu yemusangano ikandisarudza ndisipo kuti nditungamirire musangano wedu we Zanu-PF, ndikatambira izvozvo.
“Ndinofunga kuti nemiwo ve Manicaland munotambira zvakaitwa ne Central Committee, ndizvo? Hallelujah!”
President Mnangagwa said he was surprised at the huge crowd that had gathered to meet him on short notice.
He said it was his hope that the numbers would translate into votes to safeguard Zimbabwe’s legacy.
“Ndinokutendai zvikuru nekuungana kwamaita, haisi rally yatanga takarangana, ndatoshamiswa munouya makawanda kudai in one minute yamanzwa.
“Ndinokumbira kuti patinoita proclamation tichauya kuno in two weeks taku campaigner kuti umwe neumwe anovimba kuti Zimbabwe ndeyake, Zimbabwe inhaka yatinofanira kuchengetedza.
“Tinofanira kuti musi we kuvhota tovhotera kuchengetedza nhaka yenyika ino.”
The President said no other political party can safeguard and meet the aspirations of the people.
The electorate, he said, should be wary of fly-by-night political parties that are bent on causing violence.
“Tungavapo tumwe tumisangano tunotinakidza kana tuchinge tuchitaura tichinakirwa, asi isu kana tichitaura tonangana nebasa, hatitukane nevanhu.
“No violence, we want our election to be free of violence. I plead with you, it’s more important, it’s more powerful for us to be peaceful, it means we are mature and Zanu-PF is power.
“We should not be distracted by small parties in the country which go about preaching hate speech, no! no!
“We must preach love, we must preach unity. People are allowed to differ, but never be violent because your brother has differed with you, because your sister has differed with you.
“To the youths, we must leave behind a legacy where they say madzikoma edu vakatisiira nhaka yakanaka, nhaka yerugare, nhaka yakavakika, nhaka yatakabatana, ndoyatinoda iyoyo mukati menyika yedu.”
The meeting was attended by Vice President Chiwenga and the ruling party’s national chairperson Oppah Muchinguri-Kashiri, among other senior party members from various party organs.- state media
EVANGELICAL Fellowship of Zimbabwe president and Faith Ministries pastor Dr Shingi Munyeza has shut down his alcohol-selling businesses that were a cause for much debate in recent years.
Faith Ministries at one point reportedly tried to pressure the clergyman into stepping down from the pulpit because he ran gambling establishments and night clubs.
Pastor Munyeza’s News Cafe outlets in Borrowdale and Five Avenue Shopping Centre closed doors last week.
Some former employees have claimed they are owed salaries. “The businesses were just shut without notice to workers and some of us are owed huge sums of money. We were told that News Cafe was likely to reopen at a shopping mall close to Chinhoyi Street,” said one of them, while declining to be named for fear of victimisation. Pastor Munyeza said News Cafe was relocating.
“There are a number of factors which led to the temporary closure of the businesses. Chief among the reasons are the foreign currency challenges.
“There are also issues about rentals because the current arrangement was not working. We haven’t closed the businesses but it’s about consolidating, restrategising and refocusing.”
A strong critic of former President Mr Robert Mugabe, Pr Munyeza has dabbled in politics and has also called for free, fair and credible elections in 2018. – state media
This narrative was disputed by people on the ground pic.twitter.com/ky3dkDtqRi
— ?????? ????? ?? (@nicolehondo) May 19, 2018
By Own Correspondent|
Thokozani Khupe yesterday laid blame on Nelson Chamisa, for the low turnout at the launch of her party’s manifesto.
After the flopper, Khupe’s press conference was conducted inside a dingy beerhall.
A paltry turnout of less than 50 delegates by 2 pm saw the party’s leadership at the venue of the occasion, hold an emergency press conference where they revealed how their members had been intimidated and blocked from attending the launch.
Secretary General of the party, Nixon Nyikadzino(jah man) flanked by the Secretary General of the Women’s wing, Lynette Mudehwe while inside the beerhall (SEE VIDEOS), told journalists that the presence of the Vanguard had sent shivers within the party leadership and members forcing the Khupe faction to cancel the rally.
“We have since cancelled our event until further notice and this is because of the acts of violence and intimidation by Chamisa’s youth wing, the Vanguard,” said Nyikadzino.
Mudehwe revealed that this was the reason why notable senior leaders from their party were also conspicuous by their absence at the venue of the rally.
“Our President, Thokozani Khupe is in a safe venue as she waits to hold a crucial meeting with the party’s leadership in Harare tomorrow,” she said.
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Questioned on whether they had made a police report regarding the acts of violence against their members, Nyikadzino confirmed that a police report had been made and the party hoped that the perpetrators of the violence and intimidation would be brought to book.
“Yes, we have the evidence to support our claims and since this matter has been reported to the police, we will be following due process regards availing that evidence,” said Nyikadzino.
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By Own Correspondent| The splinter faction of the MDC T led by Dr Thokozani Khupe has laid blame on Nelson Chamisa, and his youth wing the Vanguard for the low turnout at the launch of the party’s manifesto.
A paltry turnout of less than 50 delegates by 2 pm saw the party’s leadership at the venue of the occasion, hold an emergency press conference where they revealed how their members had been intimidated and blocked from attending the launch.
Secretary General of the party, Nixon Nyikadzino flanked by the Secretary General of the Women’s wing, Lynette Mudehwe told journalists that the presence of the Vanguard had sent shivers within the party leadership and members forcing the Khupe faction to cancel the rally.
“We have since cancelled our event until further notice and this is because of the acts of violence and intimidation by Chamisa’s youth wing, the Vanguard,” said Nyikadzino.
Mudehwe revealed that this was the reason why notable senior leaders from their party were also conspicuous by their absence at the venue of the rally.
“Our President, Thokozani Khupe is in a safe venue as she waits to hold a crucial meeting with the party’s leadership in Harare tomorrow,” she said.
…
Questioned on whether they had made a police report regarding the acts of violence against their members, Nyikadzino confirmed that a police report had been made and the party hoped that the perpetrators of the violence and intimidation would be brought to book.
“Yes, we have the evidence to support our claims and since this matter has been reported to the police, we will be following due process regards availing that evidence,” said Nyikadzino.
Inspite of the intimidation and threats of violence by the so – called Vanguard,MDC – T cadres were brave enough to come to the Harare showgrounds,Nelson Mandela hall,for the launch of BEST on Saturday,May 19,2018#ServantLeadershipAndService pic.twitter.com/5xaqJNyH7g
— Obert Gutu (@GutuObert) May 19, 2018
By Own Correspondent| Renegade former MDC-T deputy, Thokozani Khupe who called off her manifesto (BEST) launch after less than 30 people attended the occasion, later changed after managing to recruit 30 youths. The youths appeared visually drained and hungry, as ZimEye reveals (see videos and pictures).
Khupe’s party secretary general told ZimEye he blamed the low turnout on intimidation from the her former boss, Nelson Chamisa.
The (BEST) manifesto launch was supposed to take place at Nelson Mandela Hall in the Exhibition Park.
The only notable people present were Nyikadzino, spokesperson Linda Masarira, women’s assembly chairperson, Lynnet Mudewe, organising secretary Yvonne Musarurwa and Isabel Mwonzora.
Khupe did not come to the hall as her officials made claimed that she would not be “safe.”
Speaking at Dandaro Bar while drinking Viceroy, Khupe’s aide treated journalists to a plate of sadza and a drink.
Khupe’s deputy, Obert Gutu has before accused Chamisa of bussing thousands of supporters to his rallies.
WATCH VIDEOS BELOW:
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By Tinomudaishe Chinyoka|
There was a time when Robert Mugabe said Nelson Chamisa was his best minister. Some have speculated why this was so, given that Chamisa was from the opposition. It has been suggested that this was because Chamisa was/is in business with the Gushungus, namely that it is his trucks that provide logistical support to the former first family’s dairy business. This has always been denied by Chamisa’s people, though not necessarily because they are in the know, but because as often happens, supporters make denials for those they admire out of wishful thinking than facts. The truth is we don’t know if he is in business with them or not, and given his record of late, we wouldn’t be none the wiser if he did it.
But, looking at events in the recent past, l posit that there is a perfectly rational explanation for the old dotard’s due regard for Dr Nero. In the young man, Mugabe would have seen many of the same qualities as those possessed by his wife Grace.
It was death of our dear First lady, Sarah Heffron, loved by many and missed by a nation, that catapulted Grace Marufu from a married secretary sleeping with her boss to within a heartbeat of the Presidency.
And it was the death of Learnmore Jongwe that made Chamisa Kuwadzana MP, and the death of Tsvangirai that has brought him one election win away from the Presidency.
Death, it seems, was good for both of them. And like Elisha inheriting a double portion of Elijah’s blessing, Chamisa has been doubly fortunate in this way.
Neither Grace nor Chamisa have in any way been accused of complicity in these deaths of course. That would just be absurd.
In 2017, the nation endured the so-called ‘Interface Rallies’, a series of auditions for Grace Marufu to showcase herself as a President in waiting, which really ought to be called instead an ‘Insultathon’: littered as they were with Mnangagwa-bashing themes. Had the army not intervened, Grace anga aenda nenyika.
Fast forward to 2018, and Chamisa is going around the country, rent-a-crowds on tow, and treats his audience to, you guessed it, Mnangagwa-bashing themes. There might be no ice-cream served to the President at these rallies, (as he customarily does not attend MDC rallies) but the tenor of the language is the same. Mnangagwa, it turns out, is regarded very lowly by Grace and Chamisa. His audiences listen and ululate when Chamisa gets into his grove, and their friends on sosho media gush that Chamisa aenda nenyika.
Grace went around to these rallies with a man in a wheelchair, telling all and sundry that this man was brought to this state by President Mnangagwa. There was never a police report, nor are the police summoned to arrest the perpetrator (attempted murder has no statute of limitations), but the lie was repeated over and over, because it didn’t need to be true in order to be damaging. Mnangagwa you see, was dangerous, even though he was usually sat very close to Grace at these rallies – certainly close enough to get that ice-cream.
Fast forward to 2018, and Chamisa goes around with his friend who has one arm. It is claimed that Mnangagwa did this to him, in 2008. The people look at this young man and are pained at a life damaged, by Mnangagwa. Only a few know that as far back as the days when Learnmore Jongwe was still a student leader at this UZ, this same boy was campaigning to be in the SRC, with his one hand, and has been very vocal in disability rights circles since the late 1990s. With his one hand missing. The lie is not unknown to Chamisa: they worked together with this disabled fellow in Zinasu. But who cares, if the truth gets in the way of a good Mnangagwa-bashing, to hell with the truth.
Ask Charamba or Kazembe Kazembe how they were humiliated by attacks from Grace Mugabe. Grown men reduced to children, kutukwa sebenzi ranyira mutsime. Their crime? They were perceived as liking Mnangagwa more than Grace.
Then dial up to 2018, and ask Catriona Lang, the British Ambassador, how she has been subjected to withering insults from Chamisa’s camp. Her crime? She is perceived as liking Mnangagwa more than Chamisa.
When Mai Mujuru needed to go, Grace went around saying how evil she was, and Mnangagwa was then not in her cross-hairs. She attended his investiture as Vice President. That was before she went around questioning his role in the liberation war or in Zanu PF or in government, or anywhere.
To the MDC, Mnangagwa needs to go. It is now par for the course that Chamisa and his cohorts call the current government a coup government. It is illegitimate, and they are coming to remove that stain from our country’s landscape, because God himself is in it. Yet, both Chamisa and Tsvangirai attended President Mnangagwa’s inauguration. For a coup government?
Grace Marufu stole money and said that it was loans to do business because her family must eat. She claimed that before she met him, President Mugabe was a poor man, and it was up to her to feed the family.
Chamisa took the Zuva case brief and shafted workers with his three months notice thing, and the response to criticism of a leader of a party founded by workers doing this is what? Because family must eat. It is up to him to feed the family.
When one looks at these similarities, one should then not be surprised at how the campaign is going. The new dispensation brought one new leader, but it (and death) replaced a pretender to the presidency with another one. The most insidious aspect of that chastening BBC HardTalk is not that Chamisa lied, we know he does that. It is not that he failed to articulate a single policy: we know they don’t have any. Rather, it is this: that when faced with the lie about Trump promising him $15Billion if he wins, Chamisa tried to blame other people for making that claim. Until reminded there was a video.
When Grace was accused of assaulting a girl in Johannesburg, her first reply through her people was to deny there had ever been a scuffle. Until there was a video of the injuries.
Zanu Pf with their bad old tricks of forcing people to close shops and attend Rally, Hiring Musicians so that people they follow free live shows. Suluman Chimbeti, Seh Calaz,Police band etc performed in Sakubva today. @ZimEye pic.twitter.com/pf0WqlhVCm
— NewsManLIVE (@NewsManLIVE_ZW) May 19, 2018
The below is the direct transcript of what MDC leader Nelson Chamisa said to the Vungu people which was corrupted by the state media to mean that he has pledged to impregnate a woman.
“Asi kuti musvike ipapo, munoda hutungamiriri hutsva. Ubukhokheli obutsha. A young man. Kana muchindi doubter mukandipa (mukana) ndinogowesa definitely.”
“We want to uplift and develop Vungu, but for us to reach that stage, we need a new leader, a young man. Does anyone doubt that if you give me a chance I will score?”- Nelson Chamisa at Maboleni in Vungu.
Public media ups propaganda ante against president Chamisa
The public media has upped its propaganda ante against the people’s leader, president Adv. Nelson Chamisa by putting words into his mouth in a desperate bid to malign and ostracize him from the women constituency of Zimbabwe.
The State-owned Herald and Chronicle newspapers today published a malicious story falsely alleging that president Chamisa told a rally at Maboleni in Vungu yesterday that he was young and energetic enough to impregnate a woman when in fact he never said anything to that effect. He never made any direct or inferred reference to impregnating any woman at the rally. All he said was that he will score many positives when elected to lead the country.
In the past week alone, the public media has published 49 stories all denigrating the person of the incoming president who is set to resoundingly win the forthcoming election. The public media has incessantly concocted vulgar words and anti-women messages as purportedly coming from president Chamisa with the aim of making him unpopular with the majority women-folk in the country.
The public media clearly has an agenda to concoct lies and sculpt malice against the young and popular MDC Alliance presidential candidate in the vain hope that they will succeed in denting his towering brand and image.
The negative public media reportage provides ample evidence why we are demanding media reforms as part of a comprehensive reform package that must precede the next election. Equal, fair and impartial coverage must be the dictum of our public media.
Regardless of how many times they put words into president Chamisa’s mouth, the people of Zimbabwe will not stop reposing their faith and trust in his dynamic leadership.
Indeed, a new Zimbabwe is on the horizon.
Zimbabweans want change that delivers.
Behold the new.
Luke Tamborinyoka
Presidential Spokesperson and Director of Communications
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By Own Correspondent| Several people were seriously injured when a commuter omnibus coming from Norton and heading towrds Harare was involved in an accident with a private vehicle along Samora Machel Avenue in Harare.
According to eyewitnesses at the scene of the accident, the driver of the Kombi was speeding and he did not give right of way to the vehicle as he proceeded despite the red robot.
The injured were ferried to a local hospital.
Terrence Mawawa
Zanu PF chairperson for Harare Province Goodwills Masimirembwa has predicted a humiliating loss for the opposition in the capital city.
Speaking in an interview with state broadcaster, ZBC after yesterday’ s rally in Dzivarasekwa Harare, Masimirembwa said the opposition would not win a single Parliamentary Seat in the capital.
“Morale is high in our party and we are ready to romp to victory, come election day.
We have done the necessary groundwork and this time we will trounce the opposition right here in the capital city,” said Masimirembwa.
“We all know that the opposition has nothing to offer to the people of Zimbabwe that is why we are hearing cheap political talk about the ruling party,” added Masimirembwa.
MDC politician Mrs Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga on Friday praised President Mnangagwa for his humility and pro-people stance.
Misihairabwi-Mushonga, who helped organise a meeting between the President and women in Harare yesterday said the President easily accepted the invitation, even though she was from the opposition party.
She said the only two questions the President asked were about the venue and the time.
“Mr President just for you to get a context on why women felt this was important, this has been a standing issue for women’s organisations in particular and women that are coming from communities to be able to access and to be able to speak to their President.
“We want to break with the past by coming up with this meeting. We are breaking the past in a number of ways. The first one is we know that presidents were difficult to access.
“Presidents have always been difficult to access for a number of reasons and I hope because we said this is going to be very open and frank, you will allow me Mr President to be brutally frank. Your Excellency the main problem that we had with accessing Presidents has been gatekeepers around the President. Literally those that are around Presidents, we had to work with them as if midzimu (spirit mediums) and just to getting to where you are is a struggle and for us having you here is exceptional and it is historic.
“So we broke with tradition in a number of ways. We broke with tradition in terms of how this meeting was even organised because tradition has always said we have to go and be vetted by security, our organisations have to say who funds them in case we are being funded by regime change agents. Your Excellency, we are glad we did not have to do that.”
Mrs Misihairabwi-Mushonga said President Mnangagwa was the People’s President.
“I must tell my colleagues here that on the day that his Excellency agreed to this meeting that you had asked for us to go and request, he asked only two questions, ‘where is the venue and what is the programme’. For me that was important because we were tired of having to sit down and explain anything and everything that we were going to do. We also want to break from the past because there are people that think they own a Head of State so unless you are coming from a party or ruling party, it was impossible to get to the President. I am not coming from the ruling party. I come from the opposition and I want to thank you your Excellency that that tag did not stop you from coming here,” she said.
She added: “We are also breaking the tradition around formalities so our seating arrangement here and the fact that you are sitting at that table, it is breaking the formalities. We are breaking the tradition because we have been prisoners of language so today isiNdebele, isiShona, isiXhosa siya sikhuluma. We are breaking from the tradition and being prisoners of the cockpit syndrome were only those around you is the voice that you hear.
“You are always saying your Excellency that the voice of the people is the voice of God but if that voice is only dominated by a particular people and a particular gender, it ceases to be the voice of God. So you will need today voices that are different and we are hoping that you will allow these voices to be as bold to challenge you but also for you to challenge us as for this interaction to be as good as we want it to be.
President Mnangagwa praised the organisers of the interactive dialogue saying it was a first of its kind in Zimbabwe.
He said that next time he would bring his entire Cabinet for them to respond to concerns directed at their ministries.
“I would like to thank the organisers of this meeting. It has never happened before, if it happened, well maybe it was that time I had jumped the border. This exercise we had today was extremely fruitful and in future if you call it again, my entire Cabinet will be here so that they answer questions relating to their ministries,” he said.
The Herald.
ZANU PF leader President Emmerson Mnangagwa is today expected to address thousands at Sakubva Stadium.
Thousands Saturday morning had already gathered at the venue and below were some state media (ZBC) picturage of the function-
By Own Correspondent| In a major shocker, MDC Alliance leader, Nelson Chamisa has cancelled his two rallies the first which was in Mberengwa today.
The development comes less than 3 days after Chamisa’s spokesman Luke Tamborinyoka had announced his bosses full travelling schedule.
ZimEye arrived at the Mberengwa venue in good time early Saturday morning only to be told the rally is no more.
While the MDC leader’s phone went unanswered, Mkoba, Gweru MP Hon. Amos Chibaya told ZimEye.com the rally has been cancelled.
” As I have told you, the rallies have been cancelled and this is because we are holding primaries at present,” he said.
He however appeared to confirm that the upcoming Matebeleland South rallies were still on schedule.
“Matebeleland South is on, ” he said. – More to follow…
By Paul Nyathi|POLICE Commissioner-General Godwin Matanga has banned police from eating, smoking and even putting hands in their pockets while in uniform and in public.
Commissioner Matanga made the ruling while addressing senior police officers at the Police Protection Unit (PPU) in Harare on Friday as he announced measures to realign the police services to what he described as “going back to basics.”
“Acts of walking with hands in pockets, carrying bags while in police in uniform, are now the norm rather than exception,” said Commissioner General Matanga.
The General took swipe at police officers who have developed a habit of spending time on social media while in police uniforms at work and travelling to and from work in civilian clothing.
“Some members unashamedly spend most of their time swiping on their phones even in circumstances where a high level of alertness is demanded. That has to be corrected.”
“Across all provinces where police uniforms are worn junior members have of late developed a practice of putting on civilian attire when they travel to and from work. I do not know why members shun police uniform.
“I really wonder whether this stems from their failure to appreciate the effect of police visibility to the prevention of crime. This practice should cease forthwith. Corrective action should be preferred against anyone doing so without sufficient cause of leave of the superiors,” he said.
He warned police against engaging in corruption and exhorted discipline.
“I am reliably informed that the distribution of police uniforms was being done in an opaque manner that borders on corruption. Resultantly, some so called ‘connected’ members continued to access uniforms to the prejudice of others.
“On this note, I am pleased to inform you that I have since instituted measures to ensure transparency. I urge you to report all underhand dealings which take place in the distribution of resources. Corrupt individuals should be exposed to allow decisive action to be taken,” said Comm-Gen Matanga
“We cannot condone deeds that debase our organisation like that. The onus is therefore upon all of us to collectively take bold steps that put a stop to such disgusting practices which apparently are alien to our police discipline. We certainly cannot continue normalising the abnormal,” added Comm-Gen Matanga.
He said the ongoing restructuring exercise was meant to ensure the ZRP has personnel devoted to their work.
Comm-Gen Matanga said some posts would be abolished while other sections would be trimmed.
Those performing duplicate roles would be disbanded.
He said he was alive to the challenges facing the ZRP like shortage of vehicles, accommodation and unserviceable communication equipment.
Comm-Gen Matanga pledged to lobby for increased fiscal support to address some of the challenges.
The meeting was attended by the officer commanding PPU Senior Assistant Commissioner Lee Muchemwa and senior police officers.
By Paul Nyathi|A love infested Zimbabwean man based in the Eastern Cape in South Africa has shocked the love world when he set up a huge billboard on a South African Highway to show love for his pregnant wife.
Nhlanhla Nxumalo that was not enough who grew up in Bulawayo’s Old Pumula suburb put up a billboard along a busy highway in South Africa with his pregnant wife Sindiso as the star attraction.
The billboard with his wife’s picture and some special words “Somoya wam, Ngiyaziqhenya Ngawe, Uyathandwa (My soul mate, I am proud of you, you are loved), had social media buzzing for the better part of the month in Mzansi.
The billboard has definitely become the talk of that country as people have showered Nhlanhla with praises for showing off the love he has for his wife.
In an interview, Nhlanhla said he just wanted to appreciate his wife.
“I wanted to make my wife feel special with the gesture. She had been on maternity leave for about four months and it was hard for her to leave the baby behind as she returned to work. I wanted to cheer her up through this gesture. These days we live in a world where grandmothers aren’t near to us to help her with the baby,” said Nhlanhla.
“I’m happy at how excited she was when she saw the billboard with her picture on it. Even the added attention from people who started talking about the billboard made her day. People’s attention has shifted from them asking how the child is to people talking about the billboard every time they meet me, her or us, which eases her mind.”
Refusing to reveal how much he paid for his romantic stunt, Nhlanhla said the billboard was erected on May 1 when Sindiso was on her way to the salon.
“The original idea was that when she returns to work on May 2, she’d see it on the main road. However, the billboard was erected a day before so she ended up seeing it when she was on her way to the salon to do her hair in preparation of getting back to work.”
Sindiso a lawyer at the East London Magistrate’s Court said it was unbelievable seeing herself on a billboard.
“I was on my way to the salon and I saw the picture from afar then I said to myself, this looks like me. When I got closer, I was shocked upon realising it was me. I was confused as to how this happened,” said Sindiso.
After all that has been said and done, Nhlanhla believes that he has done the right thing with his friends feeling challenged to do something similar for their wives.
By Paul Nyathi|The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) has released a statement distancing itself from a mobile application which is doing the rounds on the Whatsapp platform. The application produces a message which seems to be in favour of president Emmerson Mnangagwa. In a Statement, Zec said,
The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) would like to disassociate itself with an app circulating on the WhatsApp platform. The app has a ZEC logo and the message “Click to vote.” When one follows the command, the following message appears:”Congratulations! You have voted for Emmerson Dambudzo Munangagwa. Your vote counts.”(sic).
Members of the public are hereby advised that the message did not originate from ZEC and would like to state that the Commission does not use WhatsApp to communicate public information. At present, ZEC is using the mainstream media, the ZECWebsite ZEC Twitter handle @ZECzirn and bulk SMS messaging to communicate wall die public.
The Commission is also advising the public that it is not possible for upcoming election candidates to receive votes through a mobile phone app since voters have to present themselves physically at their respective allocated polling stations to cast their ballots on polling day.
By Paul Nyathi|ZEC have released some important information which the public needs to be aware of:
* Inspections centers will be open from 7am to 5pm during the entire process.
* If your details were incorrect (duplicate ID numbers, or multiple registrations) you were removed from the Voters roll and put on an exclusions list. If you are on the exclusion list you will be told how to correct this information and be put back onto the voters roll. There are 11,018 people on the exclusion list.
* People who registered after 6 April 2018 will NOT be found on the Provisional Voters roll. Your details will be on the Final Voters Roll.
* Take your ID with you.
* If you want to transfer your registration, you need to go to a Registration Center, not an Inspection Center
* SMS Checking will be available, and ZEC have stated that Online checking will also be available (despite a previous claim they would not make this available!) They are working on a *265# USSD code – this won’t be available yet.
By Paul Nyathi|Inspection of the newly produced Zimbabwe Electoral Commission voters roll opens on Saturday for a period of eleven days.
The inspection opens with reports that 11 000 possible voters were rejected by the electronic Biometric Voter Registration system who have been put in a seperate exclusion roll.
The exclusion list, consists of registrants who could not be on the provisional voters roll for various reasons including multiple registrations, sharing of the same ID number and the deceased.
The exclusion lists, will be provided alongside the provisional voters roll at polling stations where the anomalies were identified.
The inspection will take place in 10 807 centres established by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) countrywide.
The process allows prospective voters to check if their details are correctly captured and to correct anomalies.
Those on the provisional voters’ roll are people who registered before the cut-off date of April 6, 2018.
People who registered after April 6 will appear on the final voters’ roll.
Addressing journalists in Harare yesterday, ZEC chairperson Justice Priscilla Chigumba said the inspection shall be open from May 19 to May 29 from 7am to 5pm during the entire inspection period.
“This is a critical stage in the production of a completely new voters’ roll for the forthcoming harmonised elections and beyond.
“The inspection follows a series of events that started with the launch of the Biometric Voter Registration (BVR) blitz and mop up exercise, which saw the commission registering about 5,4 million registrants.
“These entries went through a data cleaning process where some anomalies were identified. The most commonly observed discrepancies arose from typographical errors and incorrect polling station posting while others involved people with the same ID numbers and multiple registrations,” he said.
She said they are expecting to identify more anomalies by subjecting it to public inspection before a final voter’s roll is gazetted.
“The inspection of the provisional voters roll is in itself an auditing process by citizens,” she said.
RULERS ARE IDIOTS – Mnangagwa Is A Leader OR A Ruler?
— ZimEye (@ZimEye) May 17, 2018
kutonga kwaro not kutungamira kwaro
— WhatsJokes (@Amusithirongu) May 17, 2018
The below is the direct transcript of what MDC leader Nelson Chamisa said to the Vungu people which was corrupted by the state media to mean that he has pledged to impregnate a woman.
SHONA- “Asi kuti musvike ipapo, munoda hutungamiriri hutsva. Ubukhokheli obutsha. A young man. Kana muchindi doubter mukandipa (mukana) ndinogowesa definitely.”
ENGLISH- “We want to uplift & develop Vungu, but for us to reach that stage, we need a new leader, a young man. Does anyone doubt that if you give me a chance I will score?”- Nelson Chamisa at Maboleni in Vungu.
One of the most prominent war veterans who now does NGO work, Dr. Ibbo Mandaza has said it is impossible for President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his Zanu-PF to win the upcoming 2018 elections.
He said this is because the party has disintegrated. He made these comments at a symposium on peace and the 2018 harmonised elections organised by the Election Resource Centre (ERC) and the University of Zimbabwe on Thursday.
Mandaza said, “it’s a fair conclusion to make that the party of revolution is broken, tattered, fractured and cannot possibly win elections in 2018. It’s impossible.”
He added saying the freedoms being experienced by the povo at present are a result of this disintegration and not Mnangagwa’s benevolence
He said, “there is disintegration, therefore, the apparent freedom that you are experiencing in rural areas, the extent to which the opposition has been able to hold rallies in areas they have never been able to have rallies before is not through the benevolence of this new dispensation. It is because the state is disintegrated they are no longer able to control it. The State is divided army versus police, army versus CIO [Central Intelligence Organisation]. It’s a fractured State.”
By Paul Nyathi|Despite evidence that the state media lied about MDCT President Nelson Chamisa saying he is young and strong to impregnate any woman, the government run Chronicle newspaper on Saturday ran a distasteful cartoon further purging the young politician.
The cartoon by Wellington Musapenda has attracted huge criticism from readers and MDC-T supporters who are calling on the media house to apologise to Chamisa.
ZimEye.com could not get an immediate comment from the MDC-T Presidential spokesperson Luke Tamborinyoka on the cartoon.
The distasteful cartoon in The Chronicle Newspaper 19 May 2018.
ZimEye brings our valued readers and viewers updates from the MDC Alliance rallies Saturday and Sunday…. REFRESH THIS PAGE TO WATCH
By Paul Nyathi|Founding director of the National Vendors Union of Zimbabwe, NAVUZ, Stan Zvorwadza has appreciated the violent removal without notice of vendors from a vending point next to Harare Central Police Station.
Speaking in an interview after the evictions on Friday, Zvorwadza said that the vendors had to be removed as they were operating on police private land.
The former #tajamuka activist who this week expressed his new love for the ruling ZANU PF which he fought against for a long time, condemned the vendors for resisting the eviction leading to the violent clashes with the police.
“That area is private property belonging to the police who use it as their car park and no one can just operate from private land,” said Zvorwadza.
Over 500 vendors who have operating in the area for a number of years were removed by police from the area in a bitter clash which saw a police officer being thoroughly beaten by the vendors.
Zvorwadza who for a long time has been up against police brutality on vendors would not comment on the bashing of the innocent citizens by the police.
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“Presidents have always been difficult to access for a number of reasons and I hope because we said this is going to be very open and frank, you will allow me Mr President to be brutally frank. VIDEO –
Your Excellency the main problem that we had with accessing Presidents has been gatekeepers around the President. Literally those that are around Presidents, we had to work with them as if midzimu (spirit mediums) and just to getting to where you are is a struggle and for us having you here is exceptional and it is historic. So we broke with tradition in a number of ways. We broke with tradition in terms of how this meeting was even organised because tradition has always said we have to go and be vetted by security, our organisations have to say who funds them in case we are being funded by regime change agents. Your Excellency, we are glad we did not have to do that.
“We are also breaking the tradition around formalities so our seating arrangement here and the fact that you are sitting at that table, it is breaking the formalities. We are breaking the tradition because we have been prisoners of language so today isiNdebele, isiShona, isiNxosa siya sikhuluma. We are breaking from the tradition and being prisoners of the cockpit syndrome were only those around you is the voice that you hear.
“You are always saying your Excellency that the voice of the people is the voice of God but if that voice is only dominated by a particular people and a particular gender, it ceases to be the voice of God. So you will need today voices that are different and we are hoping that you will allow these voices to be as bold to challenge you but also for you to challenge us as for this interaction to be as good as we want it to be.”
Zimbabweans can now inspect the voters roll online.
This emerged as it was announced that about 11,000 people from the 5,4 million registered voters have been placed on the exclusion list after their demographic data was not captured correctly ahead of the inspection of the voters roll which begins today.
Presenting a paper on Electoral Processes at a media workshop on election reporting in Bulawayo, ZEC deputy director for Elections and Training, Ms Rejoice Mthombeni, said the names of the excluded registrants would be forwarded to the Registrar General.
“There are close to 11 000 people on the exclusion list because there are some instances where we noticed that there are people with the same names, surname, same age, and registration documents. So, as we were clearing the voters roll, we picked up those things.
“So we have taken that to the Registrar General’s office because say for example someone between the two, one would be having an authentic document, so we took it to civil registry so that they determine who is who,” said Ms Mthombeni.
She said Zec would be using three options to verify their details.
Ms Mthombeni said people can inspect the voters roll by going physically to the established centres to check their details, check online on the Zec website or utilise the bulk short message service (SMS) facility.
“There are just over two million people who gave us their phone numbers and we are just hoping that they will benefit from the mass SMS system to avoid congestion at the polling stations during inspection. If there are errors they will then visit their polling station to amend,” she said.
Ms Mthombeni said other registrants were giving them numbers that don’t exist hence they would have to use other options to verify their details.
She explained the electoral processes highlighting that soon after the proclamation of the election date by the President, the Nomination Court would sit.
“At the Nomination court, a candidate is required to bring five registered voters from the Constituency to nominate him or her. If only one candidate is nominated at a Constituency, they are declared the winner,” said Ms Mthombeni.
She said after the sitting of the Nomination Court, campaigns would begin officially and would end two days before the actual election date.
“Voting according to the law is 12 hours. That is, from 7AM to 7PM. If there are any delays to the opening of a polling station, then that would be a special case but it will close exactly after 12 hours,” Ms Mthombeni said. – state media
Spreading HIV to your own partner is a crime but this must be reviewed, the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health and Child Care has said.
The committee has called for the repeal of the deliberate transmission of HIV law as it violates the rights of women who have mostly borne the brunt of the statute.
Speaking after the second hearing of the Public Health Bill in Parliament yesterday, committee chairperson Dr Ruth Labode said Zimbabwe has no diagnostic equipment to determine the time a person transmits the virus.
She said the same law was discouraging people from disclosing their HIV status to their partners.
“I stand here to support and to lay my support to the recommendation by the Committee that criminalisation of wilful transmission of HIV be repealed. Zimbabwe is a signatory to the political declaration of the high level meeting in New York which says, we should end HIV by 2030 and that no one should be left behind,” said Dr Labode.
“We all know very well that in Zimbabwe and the world-over, we do not have diagnostic equipment which can tell us who gave HIV to the other and at what time.”
She said more Zimbabwean women had been arrested compared to other countries as a result of the law.
“There is an assumption that whoever has manifested the disease first is the one who transmitted the virus. It can be anybody and it could be the other way round,” said Dr Labode.
She said for Zimbabwe to meet the global HIV targets, everyone must have access to services and be protected by law.
“If you are a woman and suddenly you find yourself positive, you will not tell your partner because of this law yet if the law was not there you would tell your partner and go and access ARVs to live happily ever after.”
Zimbabwe is targeting that 90 percent of people living with HIV know their status of whom 90 percent are on treatment and 90 percent are virally suppressed by 2030. — state media
By Farai D Hove| President Emmerson Mnangagwa yesterday said Britain has given Zimbabwe “a very soft loan of $100 million.”
He bemoaned how the nation has been facing cash shortages manifesting in long banking queues.
“For the first time after nearly 20 years, we have received a very soft loan from the British of $100 million and the (RBZ) Governor (Dr John Mangudya) has been telling me how he has disbursed the money and as from yesterday almost every single bank in the country had received part of the $100 million received.
“We believe that this will go towards easing cash shortages, but not only that, there are so many other sources which I would want the Minister of Finance to best articulate as to how we are fighting the issue of cash shortages.
“We do not delight in seeing our people sleeping on queues for cash. That is not necessary and that is not proper and this is as a result that we do not have our own currency.”
Speaking at the same function, Finance Minister Chinamasa explained the genesis of the cash shortages.
“First we do not have a currency of our own, ” he said.
He continued saying, “We use a hard currency as a medium of exchange. We use US dollars to import US dollars from the Federal Reserve of the United States and sometimes we decide that instead of importing US dollars we would rather import fuel and electricity using the foreign currency that we have.
“The major problem that we have is that the US dollar is the medium of exchange where do we get it? We get it from exports, we get it from Diaspora remittances, we get it from lines of credit and Foreign Direct Investment (FDI). But because of the challenges we are facing, we are not getting much FDI as we should and indications are that it is going to improve as we go into the future but currently that is not so.”
By Own Correspondent| The Zimbabwe Republic Police has launched a manhunt for suspected armed robbers who shot dead Karoi businessman on Thursday before getting away with money.
In a statement on Friday night ZPR Chief Supt Paul Nyathi confirmed the death of Karoi businessman, Ashwin Rama who operated a wholesale in the farming town, about 204 kilometres north-west of Karoi town.
The four armed robbers were armed with pistols and an AK47 gun when they broke the security gate where an 88 year old guard was on site.
They later approached a woman worker doing her daily stock take and stuck her with an iron bar. Three other workers were assaulted during the robbery.
They took $1 598.00 and later proceeded to demand money from the now deceased.
He resisted giving them the safe key. They then hit him on the head and he suffered multiple injuries.
They later shot him on the leg before breaking the safe.
Rama passed on after arrival in Harare where he had been transferred, police confirmed last night.
National police spokesperson Chief Supt Paul Nyathi confirmed the incident and said they are investigating the robbery at the location where they stole $1598.00 from one of the workers and undisclosed amount from the safe.
In a statement late last night, Chief Sup Nyathi said, ‘The suspects were wielding a pistol and AK47 gun and were driving a black car believed to be a Toyota Wish car.’
He warned business-people to step up security in their premises. ‘Where possible businessmen must have CCTV to enhance security,’ said Chief Supt Nyathi.
He also confirmed a murder incident in Runyowa village in Gutu where a 38 year old herdboy struck his 58 year old employer with an axe, just six months into his employment.
Nyath said, ‘we encourage employers to vet herd men as the motive of the murder is not known. We call upon business to step up security of their premises.”
By Own Correspondent| National Patriotic Front (NPF) is calling on its members to reactivate grassroots structures so that members can inspect the voters roll due to kickstart tomorrow (Saturday).
In a press statement released on Friday night and directed to all provincial secretaries, Jappy Jaboon, who is NPF national political commissar, called on the party’s provincial secretaries to activate their structures and encourage their members to go and inspect the voters roll starting tomorrow as advertised by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC).
“Members must check their names in the voters roll from 19 May till 29 May’ as advertised by the ZEC.
Let us mobilise and mobilise,” said Jaboon.
The party also urged potential voters who had not yet registered to vote through the biometric exercise to take advantage of the voter verification exercise to register to vote.
“Please note that all those who are not registered can go and register during this verification period,” said the NPF.
NPF is a party formed by mostly former Zanu PF stalwarts who were elbowed out of the party by Lacoste, a faction within Zanu Pf which is reportedly led by President Emmerson Mngagwagwa.
The party is currently being led by Retired Brigadier General Ambrose Mutinhiri and analysts predict that the party will force confusion in the ruling party as it has Mugabe support, an assertion which critics of the ruling party have dismissed
By Own Correspondent| There is furore in the MDC T led by Nelson Chamisa amid allegations that the party is imposing candidates like what happened in the Zanu PF primary elections where convicts and “criminals” were elected to represent the party in the national elections due in a few months.
One of the MDC-T officials who has been cleared to contest in the party’s weekend primaries for Mabvuku Tafara House of Assembly seat, James Chidhakwa is according to disgruntled party members not fit for political office since he was from 2003 up to 2007 imprisoned on car hijacking charges.
MDC-T stalwarts who requested anonymity said the dreadlocked youthful politician was being backed by the MDC-T youth wing supported by Chamisa to stand in the party’s primaries with the sitting constituency’s MP, James Maridadi.
Social media was this week awash with images of a police clearance letter with Chidhakwa’s fingerprints purportedly posted by him in a bid to clear himself from the criminal allegations leveled against him by fellow party members.
“This is going to give an advantage to Zanu PF which knows that Chidhakwa is a criminal and what they will simply do is to wait for the day when all the names of aspiring MPs have been submitted and should he win the primaries and then they inform the nomination court that there is a criminal who is in the race.
Once that has been noticed, the nomination court will withdraw him and declare the Zanu PF candidate as an uncontested winner,” said one of the senior MDC-T officials who requested not to be named for fear of victimization.
MDC T supporters alleged that all this chaos was being caused by the party’s national chairman, Morgen Komichi.
“Komichi is imposing youths on these positions in a bid to impress Chamisa so that he keeps his position in the party safe,” another MDC-T senior member said.
Another MDC-T official who also requested anonymity said Komichi was the one pushing for the ouster of senior party members the same way Harare west MP Jessie Majome was elbowed out of the primary election race leading to her decision to contest the forthcoming polls as an independent.
According to the source, the chairman was doing this so that if Chamisa wins there will be no competition on government positions since the party would now be having “new comers”.
Contacted for comment on the criminal allegations leveled against him , Chidhakwa who acknowledged having been cleared for the primaries confirmed that he was arrested for more than 20 times since 2000 but not on robbery related cases.
“I was arrested many times and have more than 20 cases all of which are politically related and most of which i was also acquitted with some dying natural deaths,” he said.
“This is election time and i know where this is coming from.
If what you are claiming is true, the party has a security department which vets candidates and surely they would not have cleared me,” he said.
On the police clearance document bearing his name and ID number circulating on social media, Chidhakwa said although the name and ID number were his, he did not post such material on social media.
“Why would i post that on social media and for what reasons,” he said.
Komichi, who is being accused of being the chief architect behind Chidhakwa’s candidature was not available for comment.
Clearing “criminals” to contest for public office was seen in the just ended Zanu PF primaries where a number of party officials with tainted history were elected to represent the party in the forthcoming elections.
The tainted Zanu PF members who won the party’s primaries included
musician-cum-politician, Elias Musakwa‚ Gilbert Muponda ,Campion Mugweni, Killer Zivhu, and Energy Mutodi.
Musakwa was early this year named in a list released by President Emmerson Mnangagwa of people who illegally externalised funds.
He is however Zanu PF’s nominee for the Bikita West National Assembly seat whose election he won in the party’s chaotic primary polls.
According to President Mnangagwa’s list of looters Musakwa allegedly externalised US$9 million to Portugal.
Muponda on the other hand revokes sad memories of the early 2000s when the banking sector all but collapsed after exposure to ENG an asset management company he was running together with his friend.
The duo were engaged in Trust Bank , Time Bank and other businesses that closed shop.
Another Zanu PF aspiring MP who won the party’s primary elections Killer Zivhu was in 2005 convicted and sent to jail for duping cross boarder traders through an organization he was leading.
Revolutionary greetings comrades. I am hereby reminding you that today and tommorrow is Dotito day. NPP and its PRC alliance will hold star rallies thereat. Today it is the clean up rally for the youth which will serve as the curtain raiser for tommorrow’s main rally.
NPP and PRC alliance president, Joice Mujuru will address the crowds tommorrow. Without busing supportters from other regions, we are rest assured that the rally will be well attended. This rally will attract people from all walks of life; across the tribal, political, social and economic divides.
NPP and PRC alliance are concerned about the plight of all Zimbabweans, the poor and the rich, the employed and the unemployed and the young and old. We are not an elitist enterprise that occupies itself with needs of the elite. Thus, we treat all citizens the same, regardless of their economic muscles. All we want to see is a free Zimbabwe where the rule of law is resurrected and the ailing economy, resuscitated. Lies will never heal Zimbabwe, neither will fighting amongst ourselves be the panacea to our problems. We have suffered enough as a people, all we need to do is to forget our differences and fight together as Zimbabweans. Unemployement and poverty know no gender, political affiliation, tribe and religion. We all know how Zimbabwe got where it is today. We all know that voting the same old and tired horses might further liquidate our economy. NPP and PRC alliance are offering you a better alternative that can redeem Zimbabwe from the economic abyss it is currently in.
Dear Zimbabweans, times have changed. Politics is no longer a gendered domain, for men, about men. Even though our patriarchal societies would like to have us understand that men must always be the heads and women, tails in politics. NPP and PRC believe in women, we believe women, like their male counterparts are capable of being the heads in politcs. Women out there who are talented leaders and are scared of exploring the political sphere because of its peceived gendered nature, must rise up today and claim their place in main stream politics.
NPP and PRC are and will always be wholly behind the presidential candidature of Joice Mujuru. We believe that she has proved beyond doubt that the best place for women is not only the domestic sphere. She has proved that restricting women to the domestic sphere is limiting them and further dwarfs their golden capabilities. Women are not instruments of production and reproduction, as the patriarchal socities would like to have us believe. Besides being natural family nurturers, Mujuru et al have proved to us that women are capable political leaders. As family nurturers, history and other imperical studies have it that they can also be good nation nurturers. Therefore, as NPP and PRC, we invite women and men of all shapes of capabilities to make us their political home.
As all roads lead to Dotito today and tommorrow, we still reiterate that Zimbabwe is ripe and ready for a female president. We therefore, present Joice Mujuru as our main speaker at the main rally tommorrow at Dotito. We further submit that we are wholly behind her candidature. As a woman with a clean and fat political CV, let us all rally behind her for a better and inclusive Zimbabwe. Dear Zimbabweans, the future is in our hands, it is us. Informed voting might help change our plight for better. I strongly believe that NPP and PRC are the best option for a better Zimbabwe. Dotito, here we come.
Victory is certain, aluta continua
NPP youth Desk
ED MEANS BUSINESS AND ZIMBABWE IS ON THE PATH TO RECOVERY
By Dr Masimba Mavaza| Six months ago, the Zimbabwean people with the military keeping peace, intervened to replace Robert Mugabe – the country’s long-time leader – with the former vice-president, Emmerson Mnangagwa.
The opposition had peddled the propaganda that Mnangagwa is the old wine in the new container. Looking at the short relay Zimbabwe ran from November 2017 when Mnangagwa was inaugurated to date a lot of things have taken place. The achievements which Mnangagwa has presided over are un-believable. The first thing he did he opened the country to business.
People across the political spectrum, believe that the ‘more of the same’ narrative is too simplistic to capture what has really happened in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is now alive with optimism about the prospects of badly needed economic reforms and re-engagement with western donors after elections that are expected to take place in July. Zimbabweans from across the political divide – even long-time Zanu-PF antagonists – indicated their willingness to give the new president a chance to turn the country’s economic fortunes around. And investors, already flocking to the country in search of opportunities at bargain prices, are keen to enter the market; the former enemies have turned into friends and are effectively seeking partnership with Zimbabwe in investing and moving the country upwards.
Zimbabwe is now out of the woods thanks to brave stand the President took in repealing laws which affected development and allowing freedom of expression. The election preparations so far have shown that the new government is committed to legitimising its rule at the ballot box in a free and credible fashion. The MDC Alliance has ventured into areas which were no go arears and Chamisa had been allowed to mislead the electorate at will. This is not because ED is a weak person, but it is because ED has brought in a new dispensation and is committed to free and fair elections and to the respect of the Rule of Law. Politically motivated arrests are now the thing of the past and ED has shown that any he can transform the party to a pro democratic outfit. Western governments have strongly and rightly signalled that there will be no significant re-engagement until this happens and in this way the re engagement has started, Zimbabwe has received high profile ministers from UK through ED’s diplomatic offensive UK has given Zimbabwe ONE HUNDRED MILLION to boost our economy. This shows the great shift and trust and confidence we now as a country command. In addition, the government has made mountains of economic reforms. This has restored investor confidence and really getting the economy moving. The degree to which business people, politicians and external investors are confident that these steps has happen is striking, particularly for a country that has seen little optimism in the past two decades.
ED’s statements were not just a matter of wishful thinking or blind utterances of the government’s reformist rhetoric, although its promises of economic reform – in some cases radical – are certainly welcomed by the business community. The talk of change and the real change Zimbabwe has experienced in six months is indeed impressive, and in some cases quite radical. With ED in the office Zimbabwe will be Dubai of Africa. The ideas ED was banding about are structurally significant: special economic zones, low taxes for early entrants, a true one-stop shop for international investors, and many others. On top of that, there are promises from all quarters that property rights and the rule of law would be respected in regard to both local and foreign investment. There is a willing acknowledgement that the government had built up trust, given events of the past 20 years.
Words are good; deeds are better ED has gone beyond words, he has performed. And on this front, the government has already taken several steps to show investors and the Zimbabwean people more broadly those things have changed. The streets of Harare have been disinfected of the police who brought in UN abetted corruption. It should be noted that immediately after Mnangagwa took over, the police were ordered to stand down. Such a move was hardly radical or controversial, but it was tangible proof that the government was taking steps to differentiate itself from its predecessor.
The government is also making moves to institute fiscal discipline and institute reforms to improve the investor climate. Since November, the government has: made changes to the Indigenisation Act that now leaves only platinum and diamond mining subject to 51% stakes being reserved for Zimbabweans. Revised the terms of 99-year leases to do away with provisions that allowed the government to push leaseholders off the land with 90 days’ notice, a move to make them bankable and transferable; and fired 500 civil servants without correct qualifications, while announcing the mandatory retirement of civil servants over 65.
Obviously there is much more to do, but in six months, these are impressive accomplishments. Also, beyond policy reforms, you can see how the business environment has improved. Long-contested tax penalties are being settled. Civil servants, under pressure from the top, are now answering phones and dealing with outstanding issues. And local businessmen and international investors alike are getting access to ministers, and even the president, to air their grievances – and in several instances getting changes they asked for. Put together, both words and deeds are fuelling the optimism so rampant on the ground.
: “It does not matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice.” Mnangagwa is a pragmatist at heart. Given the still perilous state of Zimbabwe’s economy, he knows that an investor-friendly environment is the only path to meaningful growth.
A diplomat had this to say about Zimbabwe “So what does this all mean for investors? We have worked on Zimbabwean political issues for several years, both as analysts and diplomats. The changes we saw in Zimbabwe truly were astounding compared to past years. The mood was different; people were legitimately upbeat. Government ministers and bureaucrats who would not give Westerners the time of day six months ago were going out of their way to speak to anyone even hinting at investment opportunities. As noted earlier, both rhetoric and action were moving in a positive direction. Optimism, therefore, is justified.
Zimbabwe, however, does not have a great track record of keeping its promises in recent years. Assurances to protect property rights are one thing, but following through on them is quite another.”
The world now sees Zimbabwe as the proper place to invest in.
We will not say much about the MDC alliance, Zimbabweans must remember that MDC alliance is an alliance which just want to be in power. They actually admitted that they joined in the restore legacy with the hope of being called into a unity government. When that failed they started crying for sanctions against the dispensation. Zimbabweans must reject these economic terrorists who lie to us and hold us at ransom.
ED has shown his bravery and that he is a man of his word. Corruption is being dealt with and as much as the justice system is so slow very soon we will see the prosecutions of many corrupt people.
We must put our trust in ED.
#ED MUST HAVE YOUR VOTE
Terrence Mawawa
Dynamos interim coach Biggie Zuze has conceded his players will be under pressure when they host FC Platinum on Sunday in a fixture that will have a big bearing on his tenure at the club.
“Playing at home comes with a lot of pressure. The fans want results, and some of the players are new to such situations.
As coaches we will try to work on that and motivate them,” said Zuze.
“Considering where we are coming from, we need to build on from our win against Bulawayo Chiefs last week.”
Captain Ocean Mushure who has been battling own demons is back at training. Zuze says he has been working on the left back’s endurance.
Midfielder James Marufu who once turned out for FC Platinum is out of the match after failing to recover from an injury picked in the loss to Harare City two weeks ago.
Terrence Mawawa
FC Platinum coach Norman Mapeza has refused to take into account the impressive record over Dynamos ahead of his side’s meeting with the Glamour Boys in a league match at Rufaro Stadium on Sunday.
FC Platinum have dominated their rivals over the past three years and since 2015 they have never lost a match to Dembare.
Last season, Pure Platinum Play completed a double, winning 1-0 in Harare before cruising to a 3-1 victory at Mandava.
Speaking at a press conference on Thursday afternoon Mapeza said: “It’s a new season now, we only need to have a positive mind.
Let’s forget about what happened in the previous seasons. We need to play our normal game and take home the three points.”
By Talent Gondo| Political parties and concerned stakeholders will in the forthcoming harmonised polls witness the printing of ballot papers, Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), Justice Priscilla Chigumba has revealed.
Speaking to journalists at the elections body’s headquarters in Harare this afternoon (Friday), Justice Chigumba said the ZEC had taken the decision to allow political parties and other interested stakeholders to witness the printing of ballots in order to foster transparency and build consensus in the country’s electoral processes.
“What we have said as ZEC is that we simply follow the law, and we are guided by the law,” said Justice Chigumba.
She said because the decision to allow for political parties to observe the printing of ballots was within ZEC’s mandate, the elections body had given a nod to the process and was currently working on the modalities to ensure the smooth implementation of the process.
“With regards to the second part of the demands made by the concerned political party on the printing of ballot papers, in order to foster transparency and build consensus, we have taken a decision as a commission that we will certainly do that because that is within our mandate, purview and our discretion.
“We have already exercised our discretion to allow for that and what is left is to engage all the stakeholders and work out the modalities not only with the political parties but all the other stakeholders,” said Justice Chigumba.
She however said regarding the demand for the political parties to participate in the procurement process of the ballot paper, the issue was not within ZEC’s mandate hence the elections body could not allow it.
Justice Chigumba said because the matter was a legislative one, there was nothing that the elections body could do except act within the dictates of the law.
“This is an issue for the legislature and not an issue where ZEC has the mandate to change the law with regards to a demand made by a political party.
It is my considered view that the political party concerned took those views to parliament, tried to get them to be made part of the law and failed,” she revealed.
The MDC Alliance has in the past raised the flag regarding the procurement of the ballot paper alleging that the process is flawed and is being manipulated to the advantage of Zanu Pf.
Watch the video below as Justice Chigumba speaks..
Terrence Mawawa, Masvingo
The main opposition party in the country, MDC will this weekend hold primary elections in preparation for the coming polls. 
Below is a circular that has been released by the party:
To all MDC T Provincial Chairpersons:
This notice serves to inform all MDC T structures that primary elections will commence on Friday 18 May 2018 to Sunday 20 May 2018.
The process will start in Matebeleland Provinces.
All constituencies and wards that failed to reach Consensus will go into primary elections.
It shall be the duty of all party cadres to observe discipline during this exercise.
Any indiscipline will lead to the disqualification of the concerned candidate(s).
Youth and Women quota systems must be observed.
National Elections Directorate Committee.
By Emmerson Mnangagwa| I was delighted to participate in the “Women’s Conversations on Legislation” conference this morning, the first of its kind in Zimbabwe. I enjoyed having the chance to engage with, and listen to, representatives of over 40 women’s organisations from across the country.
I was moved to listen to women from all walks of life talk of the challenges they face, and to share our vision for gender equality in the new Zimbabwe, and for economic development for all.
In our new Zimbabwe, there must also be a new era of fully equal gender relations, in which all citizens are treated with respect and dignity.
By Masimba Musodza| I pen this in response to the so-called “Statement by the Zimbabwe Palestine Solidarity and Friends of Palestine Solidarity Movement,” (ZimEye, May 15), written by Robson Musarafu and Jabulani Charlie. As with virtually every piece of anti-Israel statement doing the rounds, it is fraught with distortions and outright lies . It then becomes the duty of those who are always ready to present the facts on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to speak out and allow members of the general public to take a more informed position.
The statement makes the claim that “60 unarmed people were killed by the lethal force of the Israeli occupying forces while protesting the relocation of the American Embassy from Tel Aviv in Israeli teritory to Jerusalem, in what the US President Donald Trump calls the unified capital of Israel.” What actually happened was Hamas activists tried to cross the border from Gaza into Israel, declaring that they wanted to massacre the Jewish people.
In an interview on al Jazeera, flighted on May 13, a Hamas official Mahmoud al-Zahhar stated that the march on the Israeli border was not an act of peaceful resistance. “When you have weapons that are being wielded by men who were able to prevent the strongest army in the region from entering the Gaza strip for 51 days and were able to capture or kill soldiers of that army, is this really ‘peaceful resistance?….So when we talk about ‘peaceful resistance,’ we are deceiving the public. …This is peaceful resistance bolstered by a military force and by security agencies and enjoying tremendous popular support.”
Hamas journalist, Dr. Salah al-Bardawil, admitted in an interview that 50 of the 60 unarmed Palestinians who were killed by the Israeli Defence Force were in fact Hamas activists. Islamic Jihad, another Palestinian group claims that an additional three of the 60 were members of its military wing. Among those killed in this week’s protest was the son of Hamas co-founder Abdel Aziz al-Rantisi. One of the 2,770 wounded is the son of Hamas senior political leader Ismail Haniyeh.
One of the so-called peaceful Palestinian protestors……Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, quoted a Gazan doctor, who requested anonymity, as saying that the baby reported as killed had a pre-existing medical condition. Her family confirmed that the baby only happened to be in the area as a result of a mix-up and was not involved with Hamas militants. Haaretz also reports that Hamas officials refused to let into Gaza IDF medical teams sent in to offer assistance to victims of the conflict.
Hamas is the Palestinian organisation that controls the Gaza strip, the smaller of the two territories allocated to the Arabs when the land west of the Jordan river was split into Jewish and Arab areas by the British in what was called the Partition Plan of 1947. The other territory is known as the West Bank, and is controlled by the Fatah Party, the political wing of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation. Hamas came to power in Gaza since 2007, and effectively governs it as a separate entity from the West Bank, while claiming to represent all Palestinian people.
In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza as part of the Oslo Accord, with the understanding that the withdrawal would lead to peace and the Arabs would begin at last to build their own state. Israel had occupied the territory since 1967, when all the surrounding Arab nations launched a coordinated invasion and were defeated in what was to be known as the Six-Day War. Before that, between the years 1948 (the year the British Mandate over Palestine ended and the State of Israel was established) and 1967, Gaza was occupied by Egypt. An All-Palestinian Government was created in Gaza, led by Lebanese Ahmed Hilmi Abd al-Baqi, but it was a symbolic organisation that competed with Jordan for internationally recognised sovereignty over the two Palestinian territories. The West Bank was at this time occupied by Jordan. It is to be noted that no attempt was made at creating a Palestinian State.
Rather, the struggle was against the existence of a Jewish State. Before 1948, Gaza was part of the British Mandate for Palestine, i.e., a region of the the defeated Ottoman Empire also known as “Southern Syria.” In an interview on Egypt’s Al Hekma TV in 2012, Hamas Minister for the Interior and National Security, Fathi Hammad said every Palestinian, “ …in Gaza and throughout Palestine can prove his Arab roots- whether from Saudi Arabia, from Yemen, or anywhere…. Personally, half my family is from Egypt.We are all like that…. Brothers, half the Palestinians are Egyptians, the other half are Saudis. Who are the Palestinians? We have many families who are called Al-Masri (“the Egyptian”)…they may be from Cairo, Alexandria…”
In the finest tradition of the anti-Israel camp, the statement by Messers Musarafu and Charlie takes liberties with documented history, so facts such as the ones I have mentioned above are conveniently ignored. “ The innocent Palestinian people were also commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Nakba. The Nakba saw 750,000 Palestinians, under the watchful eye of British authority , expelled from their homeland by mid-May 1948. The British Army played an active role alongside the Zionist in mastermiding the tragedy that befell the Palestinians which Britain was the author, architect and butcher in Palestine 70 years ago.”
Arabs came to the region, which had been largely uninhabited because of the Jews returning to their ancestral homeland, bringing with them economic opportunities. As far back as 1937, told the Peel Commission, “There is no such country as Palestine. ‘Palestine’ is a term the Zionists invented. There is no Palestine in the Bible. Our country was for centuries part of Syria. ‘Palestine’ is alien to us. It is the Zionists who introduced it”. Nobody was listening, for the UN ruled that any Arab who was in the land at least two years before 1948 was a Palestinian and indigenous to the land. However, the Arabs have remained aware of this fact. Syria’s Hafez Assad,father of the incumbent, told Yasser Arafat in 1982, “You do not represent Palestine as much as we do. Never forget this one point: There is no such thing as a Palestinian People, there is no Palestinian entity, there is only Syria. You are an integral part of the Syrian people, Palestine is an integral part of Syria.
Therefore it is we, the Syrian authorities, who are the true representatives of the Palestinian people.”
The Arabs did not rule Palestine. It was ruled by the Ottomans, the Turkish. Most of what is now the West Bank was owned by just three absentee landlords. In fact, the only time Arabs controlled Palestine was when Egypt held Gaza and Jordan controlled the West Bank. While Jordan controlled the West Bank, the Palestinian Liberation organisation was created.
The Anniversary of the Nakba was coined by Yasser Arafat in the 1980s. The term “Nakba” (Arabic, “catastrophe”) first appears in 1920, and refers to the splitting up of Syria, a region of the defeated Ottoman Empire, into what are now the modern states of Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Israel and the Palestinian territories. It was called a catastrophe because it challenged Pan-Arabism, which seeks to establish a supra-state spanning the Middle East and North Africa. The only conflict among Pan-Arabists is whether this state should be secular in character, as advocated by the likes of Egypt’s Nasser or guided by Islam, which is the vision of ISIS, and therefore able to accommodate non-Arabs who are Muslims. What they do agree on is that a Jewish state in their midst is undesirable.
This is the real agenda of the so-called Palestinian struggle, not this smoke and mirrors depiction of an indigenous population oppressed by European colonialists! As PLO leader Zuhair Mohsen told journalist James Dorsey in 1977, “The Palestinian people does not exist. The creation of a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel for our Arab unity. In reality today there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese. Only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people, since Arab national interests demand that we posit the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons, Jordan, which is a sovereign state with defined borders, cannot raise claims to Haifa and Jaffa, while as a Palestinian, I can undoubtedly demand Haifa, Jaffa, Beer-Sheva and Jerusalem. However, the moment we reclaim our right to all of Palestine, we will not wait even a minute to unite Palestine and Jordan.”
The Hamas Covenant (1988) states:
“Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.”
“The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.”
In fact, if you want to look at a clear example of the triumph of Pan-Arabism, look no further than Sudan, where the Janjaweed, an offshoot of Muammar Gaddafi’s Arab Legion, have cleared north Africa of millions of non-Muslim Black people. Like the Palestinians, Gaddafi and Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir are admired by some African politicians and journalists alike because of their anti-western rhetoric. The Kurds and Yazidis are two other non-Arab peoples who did not get a country of their own when the defeated Ottoman Empire was carved up by the victorious powers of the First World War. Their plight is rarely highlighted.
The so-called expulsion of Arabs from Palestine is another distortion of history. The first Arabs to leave Palestine did so voluntarily, fearing war would break out once the British Mandate ended, moving to neighbouring states with the intention to return once things had cooled down. The movement of people increased such that Arab leaders were calling on the governments of neighbouring countries to deny them visas. On January 30, 1948, the Jaffa newspaper, Ash Sha’ab, reported: “The first of our fifth-column consists of those who abandon their houses and businesses and go to live elsewhere….At the first signs of trouble they take to their heels to escape sharing the burden of struggle.” Then came those fearing retaliation from Jews for killings in places like Hebron. The largest exodus occurred when the State of Israel was declared, and was part of a move bythe surrounding Arab nations clear land to move their armies in and annihilate the nascent Zionist homeland. Syrian Prime Minister Khalid al-`Azm, wrote, “Since 1948 we have been demanding the return of the refugees to their homeland, while it is we who constrained them to leave it. Between the invitation extended to the refugees and the request to the United Nations to decide upon their return, there elapsed only a few months.” The Palestinian representitive to the United Nations, Jamal Hussain, wrote in 1948, “The withdrawals were carried out pursuant to an order emanating from Amman. The withdrawal from Nazareth was ordered by Amman; the withdrawal from Safad was ordered by Amman; the withdrawal orders from Lydda and Rale are well known to you. During none of these withdrawals did fighting take place. The regular armies did not enable the inhabitants of the country to defend themselves, but merely facilitated their escape from Palestine. All the orders emanated from one place.”
The Lebanese American paper, Al Hoda (June 8, 1951 records that, “The Secretary-General of the Arab League, Azzam Pasha, assured the Arab peoples that the occupation of Palestine and Tel Aviv would be as simple as a military promenade. He pointed out that they were already on the frontiers and that all the millions the Jews had spent on land and economic development would be easy booty, for it would be a simple matter to throw Jews into the Mediterranean….Brotherly advice was given to the Arabs of Palestine to leave their land, homes and property and to stay temporarily in neighboring fraternal states, lest the guns of the invading Arab armies mow them down.”
In an interview on the Jordan-Israeli border with a journalist from the Gaza TV station, Al-Aqsa TV, a 92 year old woman, Sara Muhammad ‘Awwad Jaber, was asked “So, you remember May 15, the day of the Nakba?” She replied, “Why wouldn’t I remember? …Allah willing, you will bury (Israel) and massacre the Jews with your own hands. Allah willing, you will massacre them like we massacred them in Hebron…..I lived through the British era, and through the massacre of the Jews at Hebron. We the people of Hebron massacred the Jews. My father massacred them and brought back some stuff..thank you very much!” At this point, the reporter cut her off.
The Israeli government reacted to this exodus by creating a Custodian of Abandoned Property “to prevent unlawful occupation of empty houses and business premises, to administer ownerless property, and also to secure tilling of deserted fields, and save the crops. In 1949, Israel offered to allow families that had been separated during the war to return, to release refugee accounts frozen in Israeli banks (eventually released in 1953), to pay compensation for abandoned lands and to repatriate 100,000 refugees.The Arabs rejected all the Israeli compromises. They were unwilling to take any action that might be construed as recognition of Israel….
Jews being expelled from Jerusalem, where they had lived for centuries, in 1948. In that same period, Jews were expelled from not only the West Bank and Gaza, but from Iraq, Morocco, Egypt and all the countries of the Middle East. A large majority of Israel’s population is from these countries, another fact which overturns the myth that the Jewish homeland is a White colonial settler state. During the Ottoman Empire, census records of Jerusalem showed a Jewish majority. However, in 1948, Abdullah el Tell, a Jordanian commander and later the military governor of the Old City, was able to brag that, “For the first time in 1,000 years, not a single Jew remains in the Jewish Quarter. Not a single building remains intact. This makes the Jews’ return here impossible.”
Musarafu and Charlie state further, “Today, another butcher – Donald Trump – joins the murderous Netanyahau in their quest to annihilate the people of Palestine. The murderous Zionist Israeli government celebrates the opening of the US embassy in Jerusalem, whilst Palestinians are being murdered in Gaza. Peacefully protesting for their right to live as human beings.”
As we have seen, even from Hamas sources, they were not peacefully protesting for their right to live as human beings, but were trained guerillas bent on killing civilians and annihilating the State of Israel. Blaming President Donald Trump for the relocation of the American Embassy to Jerusalem ignores the fact that the decision for the move was made by Congress as far back as 1995, with the passing of the Jerusalem Embassy Act.
Successive American presidents held back against implementing the decision because they genuiniely believed that this would help the peace negotiations between the Palestinians and Israelis. However, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Jr and Barack Obama have all stated publicly that they held Jerusalem to be the capital of Israel. Trump is simply showing America’s impatience with the Palestinians. America is not the only country to move its embassy to Jerusalem. Trump is the only one mentioned in the statement by Musarafu and Charlie because his name, in some circles, evokes the kind of emotions they are seeking.
“How much more suffering are Palestinians going to endure before the world wakes up with a solution?” Well, that is a question that the Palestinians and their Arab allies should ask themselves. They had a chance to create their own state when Egypt occupied Gaza and Jordan seized the West Bank in 1948, yet they did not do so. Even the United Nations Resolution 242, adopted in the wake of the occupation of these two territories in 1967 by Israel makes no mention of a Palestinian State.
Since Israel captured Gaza and the West Bank in 1967, she has persistently offered them back in return for peace. Israel withdrew from Gaza. Instead of peace and the building of what optimists called “the Singapore of the Middle East”, Gaza is simply a base from which Hamas and other terrorist groups launch attacks on civilians in Israel. In the war of 1967, Israel also captured from Egypt the Sinai region and from Syria the Golan Heights. A peace agreement with Egypt has lasted to this day, and Egypt has full sovereignty over Sinai. Syria refused to recognise the State of Israel and has vowed to destroy it. Giving back the Golan Heights would give it a military advantage over Israel.
So, that is all the Palestinians and Arabs have to do to end this conflict; recognise the State of Israel and focus on building a viable Palestinian State. As Zimbabweans, we need to send a clear message to the Arab world that we will not become useful idiots for a cause that is seeing millions of Africans slaughtered in the northern part of our continent.
