Former Zanu PF Midlands provincial youth leader, Tanaka Manyadza on Sunday attended the Tendai Biti-led People’s Democratic Party (PDP) provincial assembly meeting, where he announced that People First was ready to join forces with other political parties in dislodging Zanu PF from power.
BY Stephen Chadenga/Ivan Ndlovu
People First is a yet-to-be-officially launched party believed to be led by former Vice-President Joice Mujuru. There have been reports that Biti has warmed up to the idea of joining hands with Mujuru to challenge Zanu PF and President Robert Mugabe in the 2018 elections.
Manyadza, who at one time was Midlands board chairman of the Zanu PF-aligned Zimbabwe Youth Council said opposition parties needed to be united to fight Zanu PF.
“If we are going to have resistance systems and resistance armies, that’s it,” he said.
“It means that we have to fight for this country because these people (Zanu PF) are saying ‘we fought for this country’, so if it means we (opposition) will have to fight for this country also, we will fight for it.”
Addressing PDP members, Biti apologised to Zimbabweans for “sleeping on duty” during their tenure in the inclusive government. He said during that time they relaxed their push on electoral reforms using their numerical advantage in Parliament as opposition MPs.
“When we got into government, some of us (MDC-T) fell asleep in Parliament. We slept on the boat and for that, we must apologise to the people of Zimbabwe.”
