Chamisa told to 'stop imposing yourself on the people'

Zanu-PF party says opposition leader, Nelson Chamisa is receiving self-deserving pain after he imposed himself on the villagers who are rejecting him for inviting sanctions in Zimbabwe.

The party said the restrictive measures had brought about untold hardships on the ordinary citizens.

Speaking to the media Wednesday, Zanu  PF information director Tafadzwa Mugwadi said Chamisa deserved the violence he was getting from suspected ruling party activists.

"Even if you are a political leader you arrive with respect. You treat people with respect. You cannot seek to impose your ideas on people who are resistant," he said.

"If people do not love you because you brought sanctions on them, then it is not our funeral. We have no duty to assist you to get to the communities.

"I repeat. Zanu-PF does not provide political consultancy to any other political competitor in this country," Mugwadi said.

He dismissed as lies, claims by the MDC Alliance that there was an assassination attempt on Chamisa in the Zimunya area near Mutare Tuesday afternoon.

"You saw yesterday (Tuesday) they claimed that these are bullet holes.

"Now the question is ‘do you know the bullet hole?'. If you look at those vehicles it is clear that these are not bullet holes.

"That will not dissuade the national attention in terms of telling the UN Special Rapporteur (Alena Douhan) our story. Sanctions must go and they must go unconditionally," Mugwadi said.

Douhan arrived in Zimbabwe for a 10-day visit to assess the impact of sanctions imposed by the West against Zimbabwe 20 years ago.

Mugwadi said it was also not an issue whether or not the people who were disrupting Chamisa's "Meet The People Tours" were Zanu-PF supporters or not.

"Whether those people were Zanu-PF or not, that is a secondary qualification and there is nothing that shows that those people were Zanu-PF.

"Our message is very clear, you don't impose yourself on the people in a community when the people say ‘please don't come here'. It's one thing to enjoy your freedom, to engage people. It is another thing to force others to become your audience.

"That becomes a grey area, that becomes a red line, and when people respond that will not be our funeral except that we condemn violence in all forms but we encourage the opposition and Mr. Chamisa, in this case, to treat citizens with respect and for him to know fully well that democracy does not appeal to his party alone," added Mugwadi.

However, the MDC Alliance secretary for the diaspora, Clifford Hlatshwayo described Mugwadi's comments as "detached" and coming from a "desktop" political activist.

"What we have reported are not claims, but real issues which eyewitnesses on the ground can attest to. Right now President Chamisa is in Nyanga where the ruling party's sponsored thugs are barricading roads armed with machetes, guns, and catapults.

" All we want to do is to share the party's convergence agenda for the people's project as agreed to by the party. Mr (Emmerson) Mnangagwa and his cronies must know that this country belongs to everyone and we need to create a contest of ideas, not this primitive approach we are seeing," he said.