Zimbabwe President Emmerson is determined to go it alone and says the opposition should be happy to be in opposition.
The Citizen Coalition for Change which lost last month’s elections says it was robbed and has appealed to the Southern African Development Community and the African Union to intervene and organise fresh elections supervised by foreigners.
It is being backed by a number of activists and civic organisations.
A group calling itself Zimbabwean Citizens has organised a petition calling on SADC to convene an extra ordinary summit to resolve Zimbabwe’s political impasse. It has more than 3 600 signatures and is targetting 5 000.
Academics Ibbo Mandaza and Tony Reeler have organised another petition calling on SADC to oversee a political settlement in Zimbabwe. They are advocating for a transitional authority and have garnered more than 36 000 signatures. Their target is 50 000.
Exiled former Ntabazinduna chief Felix Nhlanhlayamangwe Ndiweni also initiated another petition challenging Mnangagwa’s victory. He is aiming for 1500 signatures and has already garnered about 1 100.
But Mnangagwa, who was inaugurated on 4 September, says the elections are done and dusted. What is left is for him to fulfil his mandate to transform Zimbabwe into an upper middle income country by 2030.
“Elections are behind us, hence our focus should now shift to consolidating the gains we have realised so far. The scaling up of the implementation of the party’s pro-people and development-oriented resolutions is now our top priority,” he told members of his politburo.
This was a clear signal to the opposition and activists calling for fresh elections or a government of national unity or a transitional government that he was going it alone.
“The opposition would enjoy to be in actual opposition, rather than be in government then fail to do their opposition,” he said soon after appointing his new cabinet which did not have anyone from the opposition.
“We have just concluded our general elections which we have resoundingly won. This time around when we had our general elections it was peaceful, before, during and after the elections, so we are grateful to our people from across the country,” Mnangagwa said.
“We had massive attendances at our rallies, this has never happened before, we are getting stronger and stronger as ZANU-PF and our detractors are getting angrier and angrier. I enjoy when our detractors are getting angry, if they attack me or ZANU-PF then I know we are doing the right thing. If your enemies praise you then you are doing something wrong,” he told senior party officials.
“The resounding victory of our revolutionary party is an indisputable reflection of the will of the people of Zimbabwe. Our ZANU -PF party delivered tangible and life-transforming programmes and projects. We are the party with a clear vision for the future that will see more enjoying a higher quality of life. As such, our people gave our party yet another five-year mandate to lead our country.
“We emphatically won the elections together as one united party. Let us celebrate this victory cell by cell, village by village, district by district right up to the provincial and national level,” he said.
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