Zanu-PF rubbishes protests over Mugabe's birthday bash

THE Zanu-PF Youth League has rubbished protests by opposition parties against the hosting of the 21st February Movement celebrations in Matabeleland South province saying they do not have a say in the affairs of the ruling party.

This follows complaints by Mthwakazi Republic Party, People's Democratic Party and a pressure group, Ibhetshu LikaZulu, over the choice of the venue by the ruling party.

The opposition parties were quoted in the private media saying Zanu-PF was being insensitive by hosting the celebrations in Matobo district which they claimed would reignite memories of Gukurahundi.

The event will now be held at Rhodes Estate Preparatory School on 25 February after being moved from Matopos National Park.

Addressing a press conference in Harare yesterday, Zanu-PF secretary for Youth Affairs Kudzai Chipanga said they were not moved by utterances of the opposition parties.

"Unfortunately those people of the Mthwakazi, I understand, are not resident in that province, so they do not have a say at all in as far as provincial affairs in Matabeleland South are concerned," he said.

"The unfortunate part is that the responsible province, guided by our theme of promoting domestic tourism, are the ones who came up with that venue of Matopos. It is not us who dictated to them."

Chipanga said their plans would proceed uninterrupted.

"After all, we do not listen to or we do not take heed of calls from opposition political parties. We expect them to do such because that is their job of opposing whatever Zanu-PF does.

"We had several programmes as Zanu-PF. Our party Zanu-PF led Zimbabwean people to liberate this country, they were opposing. Our party Zanu-PF led the land reform programme, they were opposing," he said.

"It is championing indigenisation programme, they are opposing, our party is even giving agricultural inputs to farmers to enhance food security, they are opposing.

"So, that is their duty to oppose. That is why they are called opposition parties. But that does not stop us as a ruling party to exercise our powers to govern this country because our job is to govern this country and their job is to oppose," he said.

Chipanga said the venue had been chosen to boost domestic tourism since it is a crowd-pulling event.

"It has been our theme as the Youth League that as we do such events we also play a role in terms of economic recovery which is being done by the Government. "So we have chosen sites to do with  those efforts which are being done by our Government; to take for instance Matopos, it's a tourist attraction. So us having such events in Matopos we are promoting our domestic tourism," he said.

Chipanga said the Youth League was yet to come up with the theme for this year's celebrations.

He said regional and international delegates were expected to attend the celebrations from former liberation movements and sister revolutionary parties like the ANC of South Africa, Frelimo (Mozambique), MPLA (Angola), Patriotic Front (Zambia), Chama Cha Mapinduzi (Tanzania), PPRD (DRC) and BDP (Botswana).

Other parties from outside the continent include those from China, Cuba and Iran.