Mujuru pulls a massive crowd to her inaugural public rally in Harare

Former vice president and now Zimbabwe People First (ZPF) leader, Joice Mujuru, is increasingly coming into her political element, with the popular widow of the late liberation struggle icon, General Solomon Mujuru, pulling a massive crowd to her inaugural public rally in Harare yesterday.

By the time Mujuru addressed the rally in the afternoon, thousands of her enthusiastic supporters had gathered at an open council space in the capital that opposition parties now refer to as Freedom Square, as the eagerly-anticipated 2018 national elections beckon.

And the former number two to President Robert Mugabe for many years, both in government and the governing Zanu-PF, did not disappoint the gathered multitudes, emphatically hammering the point home that ZPF was not an extension of Zanu-PF and that she would never return to the former liberation movement.

She also said the reason why she had been hounded from the faction-ridden ruling party in 2014 was because she was a moderate who was prepared to engage the West and listen to ordinary people's voices — a stance that had put her in the line of fire of Zanu-PF hardliners and anarchists.

She also expressed surprise that she had up to now not been charged or taken to court, as Mugabe and other senior Zanu-PF bigwigs had repeatedly threatened to do to her and her allies, on account of a battery of untested allegations that included corruption, abuse of office, witchcraft, and plotting to oust and assassinate the nonagenarian.

"Nanhasi tinongoti tichimuka totarisana navaGumbo, navaMutasa, navaMavhaire toti ah, hatisati tamboenda kujeri, kana mapurisa hatisati tamaona, nyangwe nemaroad blocks … hatisati tambonzi komukai muchienda kujeri.

"Takati ngatirambei takanyarara. Hauvhurirwe docket rekuti warambirei wakanyarara (Rugare Gumbo, Didymus Mutasa, Dzikamai Mavhaire and I always talk about how we have still not been taken to prison or been visited by the police, or stopped at road blocks to be herded to jail. We just said to each other let us remain silent and shame them)," she said.

"Today I stand here to tell you the truth. Everything said about me was a lie. Those who were used to tell the lies have since come out in the open and revealed how they were abused. No lie lives forever," she added.

Mujuru also repeatedly emphasised that her party was "not a Zanu-PF project".

"It is not an extension of Zanu-PF, no. Please get it from me. I am not going back to Zanu-PF. This party has attracted people from a broad political spectrum including those who are apolitical," she asserted to much ululation.

Tapping into the festive atmosphere, she said it was clear that her party had in fact ignited the political appetite of many people who had until now chosen to take a backseat.

"It was as if we lit a match stick at a gas station. People began asking themselves what they were doing with these fools," she said derisively of her erstwhile Zanu-PF colleagues.

Many former Zanu-PF top guns, as well as other senior opposition officials, including from the People's Democratic Party (PDP), graced the occasion.

Clad in khakis and a cap, the atypically gregarious Mujuru also promised her supporters of better days to come, in a post-Zanu-PF Zimbabwe — appealing to war veterans, who were recently put in their places by Mugabe, that ZPF was their home too.

She lamented the fact that many former freedom fighters were still living in abject poverty 36 years after independence while Mugabe was spending money on foreign trips.

She also said that she was saddened by the treatment that war veterans had received at the hands of police two months ago, after they were sprayed with water and teargas when they gathered in Harare to discuss their problems.

Mujuru urged Zimbabweans to reach out to each other and dialogue whenever there were issues, instead of quarrelling and using violence, taking a thinly-disguised pot-shot at Mugabe who once said that Zanu-PF had degrees in violence.

She said many Zimbabweans had lost hope in the ruling party and its government because of their failure to govern the country properly and turn around its economic fortunes.

Mujuru also demanded the removal of draconian laws like the Access to Information and Protection of Privacy Act and the Public Order and Security Act.

And contrasting ZPF to Zanu-PF, she said people in the Diaspora should be allowed to vote, adding that the country was failing to lure investors because of corruption and policy inconsistencies.

Mujuru said her party would revive industries, improve the agricultural sector and parastatals.