JOHANNESBURG The mainstream MDC, led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, said at the weekend that it was reviving all its structures in preparation for Zimbabwes next general elections, likely to be held next year.
Zimbabwe, still smarting from an economic and political crisis that it was thrown into by President Robert Mugabes skewed policies and the octogenarians intolerance for opposing voices, is under the GPA required to lay the groundwork for an election that will replace the current inclusive government, prescribed by the regional SADC bloc as a fallback measure after the ill-fated elections of 2008.
With Mugabe having more than once hammered on the possibility of the plebiscite being held next year, Lovemore Moyo, the MDCs national chairman, announced Saturday that his party was immediately mobilising all its structures to enter election mode.
Having missed Mugabe by a whisker two years ago, in which the now less popular and highly paranoid leader relied on the army to bash the MDC into boycotting the June Presidential re-run, Moyo is optimistic that his party will be able to turf Mugabe out next year.
We are re-activating all our election machinery around the world because we are focused on the elections, Moyo told The Zimbabwean in Johannesburg, soon after the launch of the MDCs Real Change party card. The SADC pronounced during its Windhoek Summit that Zimbabwe should start working on the roadmap to prepare for elections and we have since embarked on our own roadmap as the MDC.
Moyo said his party, which dislodged Zanu PFs parliamentary majority in March 2008, is already in the process of mobilising all its structures both across Zimbabwe and abroad, as it seeks to do things differently from past occasions. He also urged MDC members in the diaspora to get fully involved in their partys affairs so that they deliver the final nail to the Zanu PF misrule.
The diaspora is key to our grand strategy and should get involved and contribute to our common goal as we seek to reach destination Zimbabwe, said Moyo, who is also Zimbabwes Speaker of Parliament and is responsible for his partys external structures.
This is our last chance to remove Mugabe from power and if we miss him this time, we will never get him again because many people might get tired and fall out of the struggles steep slope. If we miss him this time, very people will have the energy to continue fighting and that is why we are changing our strategy. We will not always have the monopoly of the support from the masses because people change.
We are, however, very happy that the SADCs involvement in Zimbabwes affairs has not ended and hope that this time things will be done in the correct manner, unlike last time when we won the elections but failed to assume power.
Moyo advised his partys members not to concentrate on fighting for petty positions or fighting with opposition parties that have sprouted in Zimbabwe during the last two years.
When Zapu was launched, they invited us and we sent them a solidarity message because they had joined us in fighting the same cause of removing Mugabe. We talk with them and so do we other parties like MDC-M, but we know that they are also mobilising and we should compete with them for voters, but compete professionally. We must not lose focus of the ball that we are playing and right now, only Mugabe has the ball and he is the only man that we should be marking, not our fellow MDC members and definitely not other parties that are not Zanu PF.
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