NDU comes out of the woods, challenges Mugabe

LONG-FORGOTTEN opposition party National Democratic Union (NDU) has come out of the woods and says it is ready to challenge President Robert Mugabe in the 2018 elections.

BY GARIKAI TUNHIRA

NDU president Glazener Muchabaiwa says they had seen it fit for the party to “come out of its sabbatical” in response to the “call and outcry by a dejected electorate” and will hold its congress in March next year.

“It is no secret that the Zanu PF government has successfully presided over the meltdown of a once vibrant economy due to its haphazard and unorthodox policies that have succeeded in fomenting corruption within its ranks and in government,” NDU said in a statement. Glazener is a son of Mark, NDU’s previous president, who died in a car accident in March 1998 soon after lodging an application with the High Court challenging the “barbaric and chaotic land invasion presided over by the Zanu PF government and its hooligan band of war veterans”.

“The recent assertions of the Lands minister [Douglas Mombeshora] that over 50% of the land acquired under the chaotic land acquisition is lying idle is an admission of the failure by the Zanu PF government and that admission is in essence an indication that our prophecy of 1998 is being proved correct.

“Contrary to the understated figure of 50% failure rate as put forward by the minister, our own assessment has proved that 80% of the national farming land is not being utilised and thus lying idle. This is a sorry state for a country whose economy is agro-based,” NDU said.

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He accused the Zanu PF regime of pursuing “tired” and “reckless” policies of scaring away investors at a time Zimbabwe needed foreign direct investment.

“It is in light of this that the National Democratic Union has come out of its sabbatical armed with practical, sincere and honest solutions and policies that will take this country out of the socio-economic and political wilderness we have been plunged into by the corrupt Zanu PF government. The NDU will to this end take proactive measures and policies in bringing back sanity into the agricultural sector as well as all the other sectors of the economy,” Muchabaiwa said.