What Tsvangirai said at the launch of the MDC Alliance?

Our common policy agenda

I have said it before and I will repeat it here that this alliance is not just about seats, titles and posts. It is far much greater than that.  It goes beyond the narrow and petty interests to include a common and credible policy agenda that will serve as a key signpost to the positive change that we seek as a country.

In the coming months, we will be presenting to you our comprehensive policy agenda for Zimbabwe that we are now polishing up as an alliance. Our coming together is substantively more than just an election pact about seats and a post-election governance structure and will see us present to you a robust policy agenda that we will embark upon after the next watershed election.

Given the comatose state of our industry, our dilapidated infrastructure and the country’s despicable and tenuous predicament, it has become imperative that we embark on a transformation and not a simple recovery agenda. As I have said before, recovery is an understatement of what we need to do. We simply need to start afresh.

Indeed, our national predicament in all facets is now well beyond any patchwork. It simply demands a robust transformative agenda. All alliance partners are converging on that transformative policy agenda that will yield a people’s manifesto with minute details on the key tenets for transformation, not recovery.

Fellow Zimbabweans, I assure you we will not commit the same grievous mistake made by our colleagues when they came into office in 1980, with the mistaken belief that independence was the destination when in fact 1980 actually marked the beginning of a critical phase of the struggle. They came in without a cogent plan and we must not travel the same ruinous path of simply seeking change without a cogent plan.

Our alliance goes beyond simply consigning Mugabe and Zanu PF to the dustbins of history. We are very clear that the real work and purpose of our alliance begins the day after the defeat of the strongman and his clueless colleagues.

Put simply, ladies and gentlemen, our alliance is sprucing up a common policy agenda that we are certain will drive the country out of the current doldrums and put the smiles back on the face of the people of Zimbabwe.

Continued next page

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