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Build Zimbabwe Alliance leader call for electoral mandate

by Stephen Jakes
21 Feb 2017 at 05:53hrs | Views
The leader of Build Zimbabwe Alliance party  Noah Manyika has  written a letter seeking nomination for presidency from party members.

"Later this year, I will be seeking the nomination of the Build Zimbabwe Alliance for president at the party's convention. The purpose of the electoral mandate I will seek from the people of Zimbabwe in 2018 will not be to reward party loyalists with cabinet positions, but to give our nation the best government it can have to rebuild our broken country," reads his letter.

"Forming a government that will bring our country into the 21st Century will require the expansion of the pool from which competent leaders can be drawn. To that end, we must remove the constitutional requirement for cabinet ministers to be members of the legislature and engage Zimbabwe's best talent wherever it can be found."

He said for 37 years, the ruling party has burdened our country with a bloated government whose size served no other purpose except to accommodate party loyalists.

"In the event our party is honored with the mandate to lead our country, we will eliminate over 16 ministries, including all deputy minister positions, and create a lean, high-performing cabinet of fourteen members whose preoccupation will not be fighting wars that have already been won, but measurably advancing and protecting the welfare and liberties of every Zimbabwean citizen. The leaders our country deserves will have more than just technocratic ability. They will be selfless leaders who want for the least of us what they want for themselves," he said.

"In 2013, opposition parties in Zimbabwe - in a classic case of politicians looking after their own interests - astonishingly agreed to a dramatic extension of the patronage system through a massive expansion of the legislature to 350 members. The Build Zimbabwe Alliance will field candidates for parliament who are committed to the drastic reduction of non-productive government spending, even if that means supporting the elimination of their own parliamentary seats."

He said a vote for the Build Zimbabwe Alliance will be a repudiation of the mindless nationalism that insists on fighting the shadows of colonialism at the expense of the well-being of its people.

"It will be an emphatic rejection of the idea that liberation war credentials, or even length of time spent in the trenches of opposition politics for that matter, confers special ability to run public institutions and a modern economy, and exempts leaders from being judged by the electorate."

"It will be a rejection of the leadership paranoia that turns university campuses into prisons out of fear of the voices of the young. It will be a rejection of the demonization of white Zimbabweans or anyone current leaders see as a threat. It will be a vote for the restoration of the rule of law, for making property rights sacrosanct again, for removing the impediments to private sector development, for reviving commercial agriculture and our manufacturing sector so we can employ and feed our people again and secure the future of our children," he said.

"It will not just be a vote for the cities, but for bringing our whole nation into the 21stCentury, including our rural communities which, 37 years after independence, have barely come out of the 1960s. Mother, fathers, and school children still endure the indignity of squatting in pit latrines or out in the open. They barely eke out a living because of the destruction of agricultural support services which used to turn subsistence farmers into master farmers. Until leaders want for the rural communities what they want for themselves, until they are committed to restoring the dignity of those who constitute the majority of our voters and to bringing them where they no longer even believe they can go, they are not fit to lead our country."

The government that will emerge from the 2018 election will be responsible for re-working our social contract and establishing the rules of the game for Zimbabwe's future.

"Because whoever leads it may be perceived to have an unfair advantage over others in 2023, let me make this personal pledge to the people of Zimbabwe: In the event the people entrust me with their vote, I would serve for one term only and not contest in 2023 to ensure that decisions made during what I strongly believe has to be a transitional presidency are truly in the public interest."





Source - Byo24News