Bulawayo is ready for a free and fair election(24-07-07)

we, came in their numbers to make a statement against the dictatorship and to add their voice to the growing national demand for a conducive environment that guarantees a free and fair contest during next year’s polls.

Sunday’s rally was part of a national series of ‘Free and Fair Election’ rallies. The rallies are being held countrywide to crank up national support for the people’s demand for free and fair polls whose results truly reflect the legitimate will of the people of Zimbabwe .

Bulawayo is the cradle of the country’s culture and the rally at White City stadium had exciting interludes of cultural dance, song, poetry and inspiring speeches. President Morgan Tsvangirai, Vice President Thokozani Khupe, Secretary-General Tendai Biti and national chairman Lovemore Moyo, addressed the rally.

The Secretary-General said the regime had dismally failed to serve the people, adding that more people were dying of malnutrition and starvation than those who died in the war of liberation. He said the record-inflation of 18 000 percent in real terms was the clearest sign yet that Robert Mugabe Mugabe’s government had failed the people. The national chairman urged the people of Bulawayo to take advantage of the mobile voter registration centres to register and vote in next year’s watershed elections. Vice President Thokozani Khupe accused the government of causing untold suffering by slashing prices, a move which had led to empty shelves and starvation in both urban and rural areas.

President Morgan Tsvangirai said while the nation was still demanding an even electoral playing surface, Zimbabweans should register to vote. He said elections were a meaningless exercise if they failed to improve people’s lives.

The President said Zimbabweans have become prisoners in their own country of birth. He said the MDC is the nation’s only source of hope, as it would provide leadership for change, a leadership for jobs, a leadership for national salvation and a leadership for economic recovery and reconstruction. He said the Liberation Team had served the people for a long time and was ready to take up the challenge of serving Zimbabwe .

The challenge, the President said, is for an MDC government to restore the people’s dignity, to recover the economy, to reclaim the people’s basic freedoms, to create jobs and to being back the people’s confidence in their leaders. He said government’s onslaught on the business sector had shown that no one could ever be safe under a dictatorship. He urged unity of purpose among all the people of Zimbabwe to achieve change. President Tsvangirai said sectoralism, politics, tribe and other factors should never be allowed to create artificial fissures among a populace that is unanimous in its desire to dislodge the regime.

Bulawayo made a strong statement that the people have faith in the MDC, its leaders and its programmes. The people told the party leaders to continue demanding a free and fair election that would change their lives. They said the hour change was on the horizon. The people pledged unity of purpose in dislodging a tyranny that had brought penury and starvation into the nation.

The leaders are ready. The people are ready. The fire of change has engulfed the nation. Zimbabwe is ready for change. The people’s hour has come. Yesterday, today, together marching to a new Zimbabwe .