'Mnangagwa deserves 2023 re-election'

INFORMATION minister, Monica Mutsvangwa says President Emmerson Mnangagwa deserved to be reelected the country's leader in the 2023 for what she said was the incumbent's wise leadership in taming what could have been a worse off Covid-19 impact.

She said the local death toll due to the global pandemic could have been much higher on the backdrop of lack of adequate health infrastructure and skills to manage the disaster.

Mutsvangwa was addressing Zanu-PF officials during the Mashonaland West provincial coordinating committee (PCC) meeting held on Saturday.

"We have to convince the people by saying it openly and confidently what is it the Second Republic has done.

"The Covid-19 pandemic came to Zimbabwe on the back of other natural disasters. January 2019, in Chimanimani and Chipinge, Cyclone Idai devastated and destroyed infrastructure, people died while livestock was killed.

"Mnangagwa's government quickly scouted for friends, mobilised Zimbabweans and united them and together we reconstructed even better infrastructure like bridges. This we managed despite the sanctions, despite choking machinations against us," she said.

Added Mutsvangwa, "If the President (Mnangagwa) had slackened in his response to the outbreak of Covid-19 by declaring it a national disaster, we could have seen the same as what happened in America where (ex-president Donald) Trump dilly-dallied as people perished in huge numbers."

The Information minister, who sits on the Inter-Ministerial Covid-19 national taskforce and is responsible for overseeing Mashonaland West province, said Mnangagwa values the sanctity of life.

"President Mnangagwa values people's lives and that is the responsibility and mandate of any government to secure the lives of people, and this is precisely what he did," Mutsvangwa said.

She reiterated preventing Covid-19 deaths also remained dear to her heart as government spokesperson who announced official statistics on the pandemic, including that of her late sibling Daniel Parirenyatwa.

"Let's take this pandemic seriously, Covid-19 is real. I started off announcing statistics on deaths of other people, then statistics on deaths of colleagues l worked with. It didn't end there, l went on to announce the death due to Covid-19 of my own brother whom l come after who died within three hours while l watched," added the minister.

Mutsvangwa said Mnangagwa deserved another chance at the helm of the country for spearheading the Covid-19 vaccination programme and encouraging vaccination against the disease.

"We should thank him (Mnangagwa) for all the responses by our government that have made our numbers reasonably low. The death of people is very painful, but we have managed to keep the numbers low.

"These are the issues, among others such as the success of the Transitional Stabilisation Programme (TSP) and now National Development Strategy (NDS1), that we must preach to voters, and not mere sloganeering 'Pamberi neZanu-PF' in the midst of hunger," said Mutsvangwa.

She urged Zanu-PF functionaries to participate in the upcoming party restructuring exercise.

Mnangagwa has marshalled the economy back on a growth trajectory, and had taken bold decisions that had transformed citizens' socio-economic well-being, she said.