Brace for fresh elections 'to be held soon' says MDC-T

THE Morgan Tsvangarai led MDC-T has urged Zimbabweans to brace for fresh elections "to be held soon", claiming that it had become clear Zanu PF has failed to stop the economic meltdown gripping the country.

According to NewsDay, MDC-T spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora said his party had resolved to prepare to take over power from Zanu PF after fresh elections following its defeat in the July 31 polls.

"As a party, next year, we will restrategise, regroup in preparation for elections at any time," Mwonzora said.

"Zimbabweans have seen that the promises made by Zanu PF were false. Whereas it promised jobs, people are actually losing jobs, companies are closing, banks don't have money, the economic welfare of the Zimbabwean has worsened. As a party, we are sticking to our founding values as stated at the People's Working Convention in September 1999 - that is freedom, justice and equality."

However, Zanu PF secretary for administration Didymus Mutasa rubbished the claims, describing the MDC-T as "daydreaming".

"They should stop daydreaming about that. We are having the next elections in 2018," Mutasa said.

"As for the economy, is it their economy? Are they the fathers of the economy? We (Zanu PF) will manage."

Although the MDC-T has been rocked by internal squabbles amid calls by other party members for its leader Morgan Tsvangirai to step down following three successive defeats to Zanu PF's President Robert Mugabe, the party maintained that fresh polls were imminent.

"MDC has weathered the storm of Zanu PF-induced rebellion among the ranks of the party. The Zanu PF government has dismally failed and will dismally fail next year," Mwonzora said.

He said the MDC-T would continue holding meetings to sharpen its policies as a "government in waiting".

"We are going to have an all-stakeholders' meeting and not just that, but many more other meetings as fresh national elections to address the question of the legitimacy of the current government. We will have lots of programmes to sharpen our policies as we prepare to take over power soon because given the imminent collapse of the economy we will have to have elections to address the crisis of legitimacy which has caused the situation Zimbabweans find themselves in," the MDC-T spokesperson said.

"We have a historical obligation to liberate Zimbabweans from the
socio-economic quagmire that they find themselves in."

Mwonzora's claim came as Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn leader and former Finance minister Simba Makoni yesterday also predicted a tough 2014 with the economic woes set to worsen.

"I don't see anything in ZimAsset (Zanu PF's economic blueprint) that responds to the root cause of the economic problems that the country is facing," Makoni said.

"As a result, I expect the economy to be worse than this year. As Zimbabweans, we should brace ourselves for more difficult times."
In a separate interview, Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga secretary-general of the Welshman Ncube-led MDC, said her party would next year concentrate on a rebuilding exercise.

"As a party which has come out of the elections, we will focus on rebuilding the party," she said.

"There is no doubt there is a whole lot of things which we need to do. We have to go back and re-engage the communities even on what was our campaign theme, the devolution of power, talking about making devolution work."

Misihairabwi-Mushonga said it was clear that Zanu PF was not committed to the implementation of devolution of power which was now enshrined in the new Constitution.