BY MOSES MATENGA MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa’s move to reshuffle the top leadership of his party is meant to kick- start preparations for another high stakes election in 2023 against President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s Zanu PF.
Zimbabwe is already in election mode despite the next major polls being over a year away.
Mnangagwa’s government suspended by-elections last year following the outbreak of Covid-19, but this has not stopped the major political parties from seeking to energise their bases and trying to outdo each other in the battle to win the hearts and minds of Zimbabweans.
Chamisa, who is out to prove that his political career is not dead after he was left bruised in the battle to succeed MDC founding leader Morgan Tsvangirai, on Friday moved to reward some of his loyalists with key positions in the MDC Alliance’s national executive.
Some of the people that were appointed into the executive include Daniel Molokele who is the new deputy treasurer general, Ostalos Siziba (deputy spokesperson) and Promise Mkwananzi (committee member).
Yesterday, the MDC Alliance’s 2018 presidential candidate said he was excited about his new team.
“I am so excited,” Chamisa said on Twitter. “We have competent, smart and hardworking people in our leadership team.
“Thank you Zimbabwe for believing and staying with us. Zimbabwe is the land for the special, gifted and talented.
“A new great Zimbabwe is our task.”
In a communique after a national executive committee meeting on Friday, MDC Alliance spokesperson Fadzayi Mahere said the opposition party was gunning for six million votes in 2023.
Mahere said they were aware that Mnangagwa’s government was “sponsoring divergence of the citizens with a view to maintain the status quo and continue the suffering of the people, poverty, injustice and corruption.”
“Against this background the party is mobilising the citizen. The party remains resolute and principled under difficult circumstances,” she said.
“Our core business is to secure transformation and change in Zimbabwe by winning elections and forming the next government.
“With the people, we stand united in our central goal with is to win elections and take power. We thank the citizens for standing firm in rejecting dictatorship, corruption and injustice.”
She said the Citizens Converge for Change mantra was not the new name for the party, “but a big idea and clarion call to place citizens at the centre of all decision-making, united to win the nation for change and transforming people’s lives at local and community level.”
“In this regard, the people’s leadership will continue implementing Zimbabwe’s Agenda 2021 plan articulated by Nelson Chamisa at the start of the year,” Mahere said.
She said the MDC Alliance has rolled out an intensive rural mobilisation and penetration strategy.
“We continue to energise the rural party membership and structures as well as championing the cause and issues of the communities in rural areas,” the communique read.
In the 2018 elections, Chamisa narrowly lost to Mnangagwa, but he refused to recognise the Zanu PF leader’s victory as he insisted that the polls were rigged.