Top MDC official hails Mnangagwa Presidency

MDC politician Mrs Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga yesterday praised President Mnangagwa for his humility and pro-people stance.

Ms Misihairabwi-Mushonga, who helped organise a meeting between the President and women in Harare yesterday said the President easily accepted the invitation, even though she was from the opposition party.

She said the only two questions the President asked were about the venue and the time.

"Mr President just for you to get a context on why women felt this was important, this has been a standing issue for women's organisations in particular and women that are coming from communities to be able to access and to be able to speak to their President.

"We want to break with the past by coming up with this meeting. We are breaking the past in a number of ways. The first one is we know that presidents were difficult to access.

"Presidents have always been difficult to access for a number of reasons and I hope because we said this is going to be very open and frank, you will allow me Mr President to be brutally frank. Your Excellency the main problem that we had with accessing Presidents has been gatekeepers around the President. Literally those that are around Presidents, we had to work with them as if midzimu (spirit mediums) and just to getting to where you are is a struggle and for us having you here is exceptional and it is historic.

"So we broke with tradition in a number of ways. We broke with tradition in terms of how this meeting was even organised because tradition has always said we have to go and be vetted by security, our organisations have to say who funds them in case we are being funded by regime change agents. Your Excellency, we are glad we did not have to do that."

Mrs Misihairabwi-Mushonga said President Mnangagwa was the People's President.

"I must tell my colleagues here that on the day that his Excellency agreed to this meeting that you had asked for us to go and request, he asked only two questions, 'where is the venue and what is the programme'. For me that was important because we were tired of having to sit down and explain anything and everything that we were going to do. We also want to break from the past because there are people that think they own a Head of State so unless you are coming from a party or ruling party, it was impossible to get to the President. I am not coming from the ruling party. I come from the opposition and I want to thank you your Excellency that that tag did not stop you from coming here," she said.

She added: "We are also breaking the tradition around formalities so our seating arrangement here and the fact that you are sitting at that table, it is breaking the formalities. We are breaking the tradition because we have been prisoners of language so today isiNdebele, isiShona, isiNxosa siya sikhuluma. We are breaking from the tradition and being prisoners of the cockpit syndrome were only those around you is the voice that you hear.

"You are always saying your Excellency that the voice of the people is the voice of God but if that voice is only dominated by a particular people and a particular gender, it ceases to be the voice of God. So you will need today voices that are different and we are hoping that you will allow these voices to be as bold to challenge you but also for you to challenge us as for this interaction to be as good as we want it to be.

President Mnangagwa praised the organisers of the interactive dialogue saying it was a first of its kind in Zimbabwe.

He said that next time he would bring his entire Cabinet for them to respond to concerns directed at their ministries.

"I would like to thank the organisers of this meeting. It has never happened before, if it happened, well maybe it was that time I had jumped the border. This exercise we had today was extremely fruitful and in future if you call it again, my entire Cabinet will be here so that they answer questions relating to their ministries," he said.