News / Regional
Less than 500 attend Tsvangirai's 'star' rally
18 Apr 2015 at 10:25hrs | Views
MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai's waning fortunes were exposed on Thursday as less than 500 people turned up for his much publicised star rally which was held at Mkoba 4 Golf Course area in Gweru.
The rally had been organised for Tsvangirai to meet the unemployed in Gweru, but he got a rude awakening as people got about their business, oblivious of his presence. So poor was the attendance that the party's provincial chairman, Francisco Masendeke had to look for an excuse for the embarrassing episode.
Masendeke unashamedly blamed the low turnout on Zanu-PF. "My apologies president for the poor turnout because it seems information didn't reach all the people in the grassroots.
"Again today being a Thursday people have turned to vending . . . their livelihoods will be affected if they leave what they're doing to come here," he said.
Mkoba legislator, Amos Chibaya was also in defensive mode on the poor turnout saying the rally had been organised strictly for those who are unemployed.
He said: "We should understand the reason why president Tsvangirai is here. The last time he was here he came to meet the vendors and today he is here to meet only those who are unemployed."
In his address, the MDC-T leader again spoke about his party's economic blueprint, Jobs, Upliftment, Investment, Capital and the Environment (Juice) which was rejected by the masses during the 2013 general elections.
Tsvangirai said his party would reverse the land reform programme which has benefited over 300,000 landless indigenous Zimbabweans.
"We used to have 450,000 farm workers on the farms and today we've less than 10,000 farm workers.
"As MDC-T we've always said that we're for land reform but we didn't say we should embark on a haphazard land distribution exercise," said Tsvangirai. As MDC-T we will return the land market to the former commercial areas so that people can start being employed. We want to give farmers title deeds so that they can start producing".
The MDC-T leader also criticised the country's indigenisation laws despite local communities benefiting from community share ownership schemes where big corporations are exploiting their natural resources.
The rally had been organised for Tsvangirai to meet the unemployed in Gweru, but he got a rude awakening as people got about their business, oblivious of his presence. So poor was the attendance that the party's provincial chairman, Francisco Masendeke had to look for an excuse for the embarrassing episode.
Masendeke unashamedly blamed the low turnout on Zanu-PF. "My apologies president for the poor turnout because it seems information didn't reach all the people in the grassroots.
"Again today being a Thursday people have turned to vending . . . their livelihoods will be affected if they leave what they're doing to come here," he said.
Mkoba legislator, Amos Chibaya was also in defensive mode on the poor turnout saying the rally had been organised strictly for those who are unemployed.
He said: "We should understand the reason why president Tsvangirai is here. The last time he was here he came to meet the vendors and today he is here to meet only those who are unemployed."
In his address, the MDC-T leader again spoke about his party's economic blueprint, Jobs, Upliftment, Investment, Capital and the Environment (Juice) which was rejected by the masses during the 2013 general elections.
Tsvangirai said his party would reverse the land reform programme which has benefited over 300,000 landless indigenous Zimbabweans.
"We used to have 450,000 farm workers on the farms and today we've less than 10,000 farm workers.
"As MDC-T we've always said that we're for land reform but we didn't say we should embark on a haphazard land distribution exercise," said Tsvangirai. As MDC-T we will return the land market to the former commercial areas so that people can start being employed. We want to give farmers title deeds so that they can start producing".
The MDC-T leader also criticised the country's indigenisation laws despite local communities benefiting from community share ownership schemes where big corporations are exploiting their natural resources.
Source - chronicle
