‘Mugabe creates nation of vendors’

Politics
PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe is “senile with a vituperative wife wholly engrossed in Zanu PF’s factional fights that have turned Zimbabwe into a nation of vendors,” MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai said yesterday.

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe is “senile with a vituperative wife wholly engrossed in Zanu PF’s factional fights that have turned Zimbabwe into a nation of vendors,” MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai said yesterday.

Nqobile Bhebhe Chief Reporter

In his traditional year-end message, Tsvangirai said Mugabe, his wife Grace and Zanu PF are engrossed in-fighting at the expense of the problems besetting long suffering ordinary citizens of Zimbabwe.

MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai
MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai

The MDC-T leader said Mugabe’s government had dismally reversed the progress made under the inclusive government.

“We have come to the end of yet another tempestuous year; a year in which our faith and belief in the capacity of the government to stand by its word has been seriously betrayed,” Tsvangirai said.

“Zimbabweans are suffering. The carnival atmosphere synonymous with this time of the year is sorely absent in the country.

“In the run-up to this festive season, we are not seeing housewives pushing full trolleys out of supermarkets and food chains as they did during the inclusive government era. All we see are hardworking vendors crowding our streets and struggling to survive.”

He said the country will celebrate Christmas under a “heavy cloud of despondency” saying he warned in January that prospects for the country would remain bleak as long as the country failed to address what he termed Zanu PF’s rule without the mandate of the people.

Tsvangirai said the Zanu PF government lacked the capacity to solve the country’s problems and was failing to provide the two million jobs it promised.

President Robert Mugabe
President Robert Mugabe

“Only last year, those in the seat of government, after stealing yet another election, promised to create 2,2 million jobs, increase productivity in our industries and increase disposable income in people’s pockets, among many other promises,” he wrote.

“But the reality is something completely different; companies are closing, all hope is now completely shattered and the economic prospects remain dim for the country and its people.

“Added to that is a senile president with a vituperative wife and a party that has prioritised infighting at the expense of the problems plaguing ordinary citizens of this country,” Tsvangirai said.

“The net result is a despondent people with a clueless party in the seat of government.”

Tsvangirai described the ministers announced last week as old characters and the Cabinet reshuffle as an uninspiring non-event.

“Last week’s so-called Cabinet reshuffle failed to inspire any confidence in the nation as it was simply a shuffling of the chairs in the Titanic,” he said.

“The ‘new’ brooms are the same old characters, who have failed to deliver over the years.

“Mugabe has lived true to the adage that there is always so much deadwood in a Zanu PF Cabinet that one can make an ark.”

Tsvangirai rallied on students, workers, the unemployed, housewives and vendors to stand up for ultimate action to stop the suffering caused by Mugabe and Zanu PF’s misrule.

“We in the MDC-T have resolved that the situation in the country will not take care of itself without us doing anything about it,” he admonished.

“We have a plan to determine the endgame so that the country returns to full legitimacy and regains lost confidence.

“The national convergence is already palpable and clear for everyone to see. If the minority in Zanu PF are now suspending and firing the majority on the basis that those being suspended are against the status quo, it confirms that there is now national consensus beyond just the MDC-T that the country needs to start on a new slate.”

Early this year, Tsvangirai told supporters at Stanley Square, Makokoba, to gear themselves for massive nationwide street protests which he would lead from the front. To date no single protest has been undertaken.