Opinion / Columnist
A new era is born. You have a duty to the people of Zimbabwe
25 Jul 2016 at 07:18hrs | Views
Silence Chihuri is a Zimbabwean who was born and grew up in Kowo Village in Mutoko. He likes to be known more for his underprivileged but very happy upbringing and childhood heading cattle and goats barefooted in the Nyamatsvitsvi plains and Nyazvipungu and Rumupfumoti hills on the north east and south west of Kowo Village respectively.
For him going to the UK and settling in Scotland where he studied law, worked for some of the leading FTSE UK companies such as Virgin Media, British Gas, Morrisons Supermarkets, Whitbread Group and other smaller companies such as JD Wetherspoons, Macdonald Hotels, DM Designs, and Standard Life was purely by the grace of God. Chihuri insists however, that his true making was in the village back at Kowo where hard work, responsibility, and useful existence was at the very core of his early life.
Today the married and devoutly Christian Chihuri a Mubvuwi of the United Methodist Church in Scotland's capital Edinburgh talks passionately about the United Democratic Front (UDF), the party he was instrumental in founding together with other like-minded Zimbabweans after years of meticulous planning. Chihuri was unanimously appointed interim President of the party at its first full National Executive Committee meeting held in Scotland on 26 July 2015. The party has since been growing from strength to strength.
The UDF is launched against a backdrop of deep divisions in our country. On one hand is the political division that has been created by the long history of having one dominant ruling party. The introduction of opposition political parties over the recent years (the opposition movement) has pitted the supporters of the ruling party against those of this opposition movement. The results have been a deadly them and us squaring off.
The UDF is a party that unequivocally advocates for total national unity through genuinely inclusive leadership and sharing of political and economic power. The party seeks to address the long established imbalance of political leadership because if that is done properly, the resultant balance of political power will consequently aid the balance of economic power across our communities. The structures of the UDF at home and abroad and evidently tribally balance but the party is actively working on addressing the racial balance as well.
The UDF also unequivocally calls for the non-discriminatory involvement of Zimbabweans in the Diaspora not just in bankrolling the national economy, but in their meaningful participation in national politics and all national economic empowerment programs. Zimbabweans in the Diaspora have been sustaining the Zimbabwean economy and yet prior to the launch of the UDF, no political party in existence in Zimbabwe had ever placed such emphasis on the massive pool of talent and exceptional human resource in the Diaspora.
Perhaps the greatest injustice of all time on Zimbabweans in the Diaspora has been their denial of the right to vote in all elections in Zimbabwe. Yet Zimbabwe has the largest percentage of citizens based outside the country in relation to net national population in the entire Sub-Saharan African region. Our total population is around 15million and the number of Zimbabweans currently domiciled is around 3million. The UDF seeks the immediate end to the perpetuation of this unjustified discrimination of Zimbabweans in the Diaspora.
The UDF has already started the process of approaching the government (and the courts if necessary), in Zimbabwe with a view to ensure that the provision of the new constitution that gives a vote to all Zimbabwean including those in the Diaspora, is re-aligned with Zimbabwean law so as to take immediate effect. The UDF will be participating in all forthcoming elections but any failure by the government to urgently addressing this long overdue issue will not necessarily lead to any boycott of elections by the UDF but we will seek the delay of any polls that are designed to exclude citizens in the Diaspora.
The UDF commends the active role that the churches in Zimbabwe have been taking in recent times with leading religious figures and pastors addressing the government directly on issues affecting the people of Zimbabwe. Mention of the church would not be sufficient without adding the name of Pastor Evan Mawarire. His message of rallying Zimbabweans into peaceful protest under the banner of the church resonates with the God fearing principles and values of the UDF as party. We acknowledge his role and contribution into the democratic and opposition movement and we urge him to continue his message of non-violent protest.
There has been a lot of talk about the issue of a coalition of Zimbabwean opposition parties in order to mount an effective challenge on ZANU PF. The UDF supports the idea of uniting to confront a common enemy in ZANU PF. However, our party does not subscribe to the idea of unity at all costs or unity with just about anyone or anything. Our party strongly believes that parties should actually take integrity and credibility to a coalition process rather than go into the discussion room to try and extort relevance out of their mere participation into the process. Coalition is also a meeting of minds and the mind need to share common values and principles that must make the foundation of the coalition process.
In the Zimbabwean case the coalition process is no longer a possible route that the UDF as a party would advise be approached just for the sake of it, or just because the media is pushing for it. However, where genuine players with the integrity, the political relevance and support base come to the coalition table and reach out to the UDF, the party will respectively engage with them and explore all possible outcomes. The UDF will not be wasting time through sanitising political non-entities whose political shelf-life in Zimbabwean national politics has long expired.
The UDF as a political force recognises the important role that was played by the veterans of our liberation struggle. Everywhere in the world veteran of all kinds of national struggles are celebrated and Zimbabwe is not isolated in observing the historical role of our veterans. However, the party will not blindly side with, and naively support them because the veterans' movement is now a severely compromised entity. The defective vetting process that ushered in the veterans' associations in their various forms allowed imposters, criminals and other malcontents to find their way at the very heart of a movement that was supposed to honourable and above reproach.
We all know this is not the case today because while every person who genuinely took part in the struggle for our liberation is a veteran of that struggle, not everyone in the veterans' movement today actually took party in the struggle for our liberation in the way they have misled our nation to believe. The UDF is a very open minded political entity and it will give credit where it is deserved but also proffer due scrutiny where it is called for.
The UDF is a party of small living within our means. It is a party that if elected in 2018 with be a government of small but effective government. We will abolish posts of Deputy Minister. There will be no issue vehicles for ministers and MP's, there will be no state houses for ministers. There will be no hotel accommodation for ministers or government officials. Ministers or MP's who stay out of town will have to either rent or buy their own homes where they will live. They will be paid enough money to afford a mortgage and a privately secured car finance loan.
The era of excesses at the heart of central government will be coming to an end under a UDF government. A President under the UDF government will travel by scheduled aircraft. The president and ministers under a UDF government will receive medical treatment from Zimbabwean hospitals from day one unless it can be verified beyond reasonable doubt that any medical assistance sought abroad will be verifiably funded by the party seeking it without any recourse from Zimbabwean public funds. The focus of a UDF government would be the restoration of the Zimbabwean health care system to world standards.
In the weeks and months ahead the UDF through its Portfolio Secretaries will be explaining in detail the party's policy framework. For those who would like to be involved the party Zimbabweans can join the party from wherever they are. We have branches and leadership structures in the following places outside Zimbabwe: United Kingdom, Canada, Republic of Ireland, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Belgium, and USA. In Zimbabwe we have structures in all the ten provinces of Masvingo, Manicaland, Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West, Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, Harare, Matabeleland South, Midlands and Mashonaland Central.
The UDF can be contacted via details found on our official website www.udfzimbabwe.org our Twitter handler @RealUDFZimbabwe our Facebook page.
Thank You
Silence Chihuri
UDF Interim President
For him going to the UK and settling in Scotland where he studied law, worked for some of the leading FTSE UK companies such as Virgin Media, British Gas, Morrisons Supermarkets, Whitbread Group and other smaller companies such as JD Wetherspoons, Macdonald Hotels, DM Designs, and Standard Life was purely by the grace of God. Chihuri insists however, that his true making was in the village back at Kowo where hard work, responsibility, and useful existence was at the very core of his early life.
Today the married and devoutly Christian Chihuri a Mubvuwi of the United Methodist Church in Scotland's capital Edinburgh talks passionately about the United Democratic Front (UDF), the party he was instrumental in founding together with other like-minded Zimbabweans after years of meticulous planning. Chihuri was unanimously appointed interim President of the party at its first full National Executive Committee meeting held in Scotland on 26 July 2015. The party has since been growing from strength to strength.
The UDF is launched against a backdrop of deep divisions in our country. On one hand is the political division that has been created by the long history of having one dominant ruling party. The introduction of opposition political parties over the recent years (the opposition movement) has pitted the supporters of the ruling party against those of this opposition movement. The results have been a deadly them and us squaring off.
The UDF is a party that unequivocally advocates for total national unity through genuinely inclusive leadership and sharing of political and economic power. The party seeks to address the long established imbalance of political leadership because if that is done properly, the resultant balance of political power will consequently aid the balance of economic power across our communities. The structures of the UDF at home and abroad and evidently tribally balance but the party is actively working on addressing the racial balance as well.
The UDF also unequivocally calls for the non-discriminatory involvement of Zimbabweans in the Diaspora not just in bankrolling the national economy, but in their meaningful participation in national politics and all national economic empowerment programs. Zimbabweans in the Diaspora have been sustaining the Zimbabwean economy and yet prior to the launch of the UDF, no political party in existence in Zimbabwe had ever placed such emphasis on the massive pool of talent and exceptional human resource in the Diaspora.
Perhaps the greatest injustice of all time on Zimbabweans in the Diaspora has been their denial of the right to vote in all elections in Zimbabwe. Yet Zimbabwe has the largest percentage of citizens based outside the country in relation to net national population in the entire Sub-Saharan African region. Our total population is around 15million and the number of Zimbabweans currently domiciled is around 3million. The UDF seeks the immediate end to the perpetuation of this unjustified discrimination of Zimbabweans in the Diaspora.
The UDF has already started the process of approaching the government (and the courts if necessary), in Zimbabwe with a view to ensure that the provision of the new constitution that gives a vote to all Zimbabwean including those in the Diaspora, is re-aligned with Zimbabwean law so as to take immediate effect. The UDF will be participating in all forthcoming elections but any failure by the government to urgently addressing this long overdue issue will not necessarily lead to any boycott of elections by the UDF but we will seek the delay of any polls that are designed to exclude citizens in the Diaspora.
The UDF commends the active role that the churches in Zimbabwe have been taking in recent times with leading religious figures and pastors addressing the government directly on issues affecting the people of Zimbabwe. Mention of the church would not be sufficient without adding the name of Pastor Evan Mawarire. His message of rallying Zimbabweans into peaceful protest under the banner of the church resonates with the God fearing principles and values of the UDF as party. We acknowledge his role and contribution into the democratic and opposition movement and we urge him to continue his message of non-violent protest.
In the Zimbabwean case the coalition process is no longer a possible route that the UDF as a party would advise be approached just for the sake of it, or just because the media is pushing for it. However, where genuine players with the integrity, the political relevance and support base come to the coalition table and reach out to the UDF, the party will respectively engage with them and explore all possible outcomes. The UDF will not be wasting time through sanitising political non-entities whose political shelf-life in Zimbabwean national politics has long expired.
The UDF as a political force recognises the important role that was played by the veterans of our liberation struggle. Everywhere in the world veteran of all kinds of national struggles are celebrated and Zimbabwe is not isolated in observing the historical role of our veterans. However, the party will not blindly side with, and naively support them because the veterans' movement is now a severely compromised entity. The defective vetting process that ushered in the veterans' associations in their various forms allowed imposters, criminals and other malcontents to find their way at the very heart of a movement that was supposed to honourable and above reproach.
We all know this is not the case today because while every person who genuinely took part in the struggle for our liberation is a veteran of that struggle, not everyone in the veterans' movement today actually took party in the struggle for our liberation in the way they have misled our nation to believe. The UDF is a very open minded political entity and it will give credit where it is deserved but also proffer due scrutiny where it is called for.
The UDF is a party of small living within our means. It is a party that if elected in 2018 with be a government of small but effective government. We will abolish posts of Deputy Minister. There will be no issue vehicles for ministers and MP's, there will be no state houses for ministers. There will be no hotel accommodation for ministers or government officials. Ministers or MP's who stay out of town will have to either rent or buy their own homes where they will live. They will be paid enough money to afford a mortgage and a privately secured car finance loan.
The era of excesses at the heart of central government will be coming to an end under a UDF government. A President under the UDF government will travel by scheduled aircraft. The president and ministers under a UDF government will receive medical treatment from Zimbabwean hospitals from day one unless it can be verified beyond reasonable doubt that any medical assistance sought abroad will be verifiably funded by the party seeking it without any recourse from Zimbabwean public funds. The focus of a UDF government would be the restoration of the Zimbabwean health care system to world standards.
In the weeks and months ahead the UDF through its Portfolio Secretaries will be explaining in detail the party's policy framework. For those who would like to be involved the party Zimbabweans can join the party from wherever they are. We have branches and leadership structures in the following places outside Zimbabwe: United Kingdom, Canada, Republic of Ireland, South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Belgium, and USA. In Zimbabwe we have structures in all the ten provinces of Masvingo, Manicaland, Mashonaland East, Mashonaland West, Matabeleland North, Bulawayo, Harare, Matabeleland South, Midlands and Mashonaland Central.
The UDF can be contacted via details found on our official website www.udfzimbabwe.org our Twitter handler @RealUDFZimbabwe our Facebook page.
Thank You
Silence Chihuri
UDF Interim President
Source - Silence Chihuri UDF Interim President
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