News / National
Tsvangirai reschedules MDC-T demo
20 Jun 2016 at 11:14hrs | Views
THE Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC-T has been forced to bring forward its anti-government demonstration in Mutare to Thursday instead of Saturday after Zanu PF said it also had a function running in the city on the same day.
MDC-T spokesperson, Obert Gutu yesterday confirmed the changes, but blasted the ruling party for deliberately causing the clash of events, as part of a wider plot to sabotage the demonstration.
"The police were giving us all sorts of excuses about June 25. They advised us that Zanu PF had lodged an earlier application to hold their meeting in Mutare on June 25 and so there would be a clash with our demo scheduled to take place on the same day," he said.
"The MDC Manicaland provincial executive held a meeting yesterday (Saturday) and they unanimously agreed that the demo be moved forward to June 23."
MDC-T Manicaland provincial chairman, David Chimhini said his party sought police clearance on June 8, while Zanu PF provincial youth chairman, Mubuso Chinguno said they applied last month.
Incidentally, both parties had scheduled their meetings to take place at Meikles Park.
Chinguno denied trying to sabotage the opposition demonstration.
"It's not a demonstration as such, what we are going to do on Saturday is to launch a policy where we are going to list all youths who do not have stands. We will launch it at Meikles Park and all the provincial and national youths executive members will be in attendance," he said.
"We are not sabotaging them (MDC-T), but we had booked the event last month, I think it is them, MDC-T, who are trying to sabotage our event because they don't want youths to be given stands. We want to do tangible things and this is something that is being done by the (Local Government) ministry. After Mutare, we will go to Rusape and Chimanimani."
Despite the switch in dates, Gutu was yesterday optimistic the demonstration would be a success.
"We expect a crowd of no less than 10 000 people to come and demonstrate against the deteriorating economic conditions
such as the Zanu PF regime's failure to create 2,2 million jobs as they promised the people in their election manifesto in 2013," he said.
"Manicaland is the hub of the diamond mining industry. We will also be demonstrating against the government regarding the $15 billion worth of diamonds that President Robert Mugabe publicly admitted were stolen from Marange and Chiadzwa."
MDC-T spokesperson, Obert Gutu yesterday confirmed the changes, but blasted the ruling party for deliberately causing the clash of events, as part of a wider plot to sabotage the demonstration.
"The police were giving us all sorts of excuses about June 25. They advised us that Zanu PF had lodged an earlier application to hold their meeting in Mutare on June 25 and so there would be a clash with our demo scheduled to take place on the same day," he said.
"The MDC Manicaland provincial executive held a meeting yesterday (Saturday) and they unanimously agreed that the demo be moved forward to June 23."
MDC-T Manicaland provincial chairman, David Chimhini said his party sought police clearance on June 8, while Zanu PF provincial youth chairman, Mubuso Chinguno said they applied last month.
Incidentally, both parties had scheduled their meetings to take place at Meikles Park.
"It's not a demonstration as such, what we are going to do on Saturday is to launch a policy where we are going to list all youths who do not have stands. We will launch it at Meikles Park and all the provincial and national youths executive members will be in attendance," he said.
"We are not sabotaging them (MDC-T), but we had booked the event last month, I think it is them, MDC-T, who are trying to sabotage our event because they don't want youths to be given stands. We want to do tangible things and this is something that is being done by the (Local Government) ministry. After Mutare, we will go to Rusape and Chimanimani."
Despite the switch in dates, Gutu was yesterday optimistic the demonstration would be a success.
"We expect a crowd of no less than 10 000 people to come and demonstrate against the deteriorating economic conditions
such as the Zanu PF regime's failure to create 2,2 million jobs as they promised the people in their election manifesto in 2013," he said.
"Manicaland is the hub of the diamond mining industry. We will also be demonstrating against the government regarding the $15 billion worth of diamonds that President Robert Mugabe publicly admitted were stolen from Marange and Chiadzwa."
Source - newsday
