Full contribution:
HON. MISIHAIRABWI MUSHONGA: I would like to start by thanking the President for the speech that he delivered in this House. In the same light with Hon. Chamisa, I will not speak to the Acts that the President brought in but I will speak to what I think were some of the expectations that we as Members of Parliament and the general public had in terms of where we are going right now. I think the tragedy or sad thing about what happens when the President comes in and makes a speech is the inability of having the President sit and listen to some of the responses that come from the House. I think it would make a huge difference if he was able to sit and listen to what Members of Parliament will be saying. I say so because I think when some things are said and then interpreted in the media, they look somewhat different from the intention of those Members that will have spoken. I will speak but I am a bit hesitant because I know that what generally happens is that words become misconstrued and not understood as spoken. I will however take the risk of speaking to those things in the hope that perhaps there are times when His Excellency does have an opportunity to look at the Hansard and be able to read verbatim, some of the things that we say in this House.
Mr. Speaker, when a President comes to the House, it is usually for him to speak within a particular context. I think we need to ask ourselves what the current socio-economic and political context is in Zimbabwe. What was sad for me on the day that the President came to address us is that usually when he comes and gives a speech, it does not matter whether you agree or disagree with him. There is a certain level of excitement and passion that comes along with his visit but I did not see that. I remember that somebody stood up and raised a point of order that the entire front bench was sleeping. The response from the Speaker was that it was disrespectful. I however think it could have been more because I do not think those Hon. Members were being disrespectful but what it meant was that there was a total disconnect between what the President was presenting as priority issues to the actual day to day issues that are affecting the people of Zimbabwe right now.
Mr. Speaker, I want to speak on two issues that I found a bit challenging about the speech. The first major issue is that this country has become a divided nation. Zimbabwe has never been such a divided nation to the level that we are this time. We are divided in a number of things. We are divided even at Cabinet itself. For the first in this country, we have a Cabinet that is at war with itself. We have a Cabinet that is divided. You hear a Cabinet Minister who comes and say this today and another one comes and says that tomorrow. It is not giving a sense that says these people are united.
Mr. Speaker Sir, when you look at The Herald, every other day you can be rest assured that The Herald is speaking to a particular war of Cabinet against each other. I do not care what it is about but you can read whether it is the columnist – I do not know whether others have read the columns that are in The Herald. For the first time that I have known and sat in this House, I have never had a time in which a State newspaper is taking on one of its own in the manner that is being done. I am not taking sides but what I am basically saying Mr. Speaker is that at the end of the day, it just says the centre is not holding, whatever the issue but the centre is not holding. The second one that shows us to be a divided nation is that for the first time, we have never had a time in which the history of this country has been so distorted and so contested.
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