Zimbabwe President Emmerson Monangagwa today said he is now aiming to propel Zimbabwe into an upper middle income economy when his current term ends, which is two years ahead of schedule.
Writing is his weekly column in the Sunday Mail, which he stopped writing during the campaign for the elections held in August which he won, Mnamgagwa said now that the elections were over, people should look beyond party politics and build the nation.
“Vision 2030 straddles three political terms, the first of which began in 2018 and ended this year, just before our Harmonised Elections. We have just begun the second term, which ends two years shy of 2030, the year our Vision is scheduled to run its full, programmed course,” he said.
“This makes the current term decisive in actualising the broad goals of our Vision. My commitment is to ensure that our Vision is realised two years ahead of its due date. It is a pledge and hope arising from a hard-headed look at what, together, we have been able to accomplish in the last five years which have gone by.
“The progress has been both foundational and phenomenal, thus justifying my optimism, and making the realisation of our Vision quite feasible. I know that with greater will and focus, we are able to quicken our development pace, thus hastening the realisation of all our goals.
“We need to work together, including across the political divide. I intend to re-instate the Framework for Political Actors Dialogue, POLAD. It served us remarkably well in the last five years, helping us to find each other across the political divide, thus conceiving policies for our nation collectively.
“To that end, I shall be inviting leaders of all political parties who participated in the just-ended harmonised elections so, together, we refashion the Framework in order to make it more responsive and better able to serve the times and our nation.
“I trust that my invitation will be welcomed by most, if not all, political actors. Party politics must never stand in the way, or make us deaf to the call to work together for the collective good of our people and our nation. Zimbabwe is our country together,” he said.
Below is the full article:
Resuming the National Development Agenda
Thank you, Zimbabwe!
Our harmonised elections have come and gone, in the process extending ZANU PF’s governing mandate. I want to thank and express my profound gratitude to all the Zimbabweans who voted for our party, ZANU PF, and for me as your President.
In the same spirit and most of all, I heartily thank all of you, fellow Zimbabweans and compatriots, for cultivating, keeping and defending the peace before, during and after our harmonised elections. That peace which you painstakingly built and defended, today durably abides, and holds out hope for peaceful elections in future. I am convinced that we have turned the corner, resolutely abhorring and putting behind us the baneful cycle of political violence which used to convulse past elections, thus stereotyping and besmirching our nation. Indeed, that sad and regrettable past has been a rough teacher; it has delivered hard lessons which now stand heeded by all actors in our political society. Well done, Zimbabwe!
As our late Vice President John Landa Nkomo always used to remind us, peace is begot by you, by me and by all of us, acting in concert, and in the national interest. Going forward, all of us must now commit ourselves to transforming this milestone in our electoral affairs into an abiding gain firmly built into our collective personality, until we begin to take for granted our peace in all our future elections.
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