By Patrick Chinamasa
I stand solidly behind, and in full support of, the statement just issued on behalf of the Zanu PF Youth League by Honourable Cde John Paradza, Member of Parliament for Gutu West and Deputy Secretary of Youth Affairs of the Revolutionary Mass Party Zanu PF, castigating the announced donation of USD$3,6million by Sir Wicknell Chivhayo to Parliamentarians on the eve of a historic amendment of our National Constitution.
I totally agree that the proposed donation is misguided, ill advised, ill conceived, uncalled for, and a brazen but futile attempt to put our President Dr. E.D. Mnangagwa, our State Institutions, and the entire Parliamentary and Government Leadership and System into disrepute.
The announced donation can only be interpreted by right thinking men and women as a base, unethical, unprincipled, and unnecessary attempt to influence the outcome of the ongoing debate on CAB3.
The Zanu PF Youth League is ideologically correct and, with Youths of this ideological clarity, I can safely say that the Country and Zanu PFare in safe political hands.
And let it be said, and loudly so, that CAB3 will receive the overwhelming support of both Houses of Parliament (i.e. the National Assembly and the Senate) because Zanu PF Members of Parliament will vote according to the dictates of the Zanu PF Party in compliance with the Bulawayo and Mutare Zanu PF Annual People’s Conference Resolutions, and also purely on its own merits.
For the following reasons, CAB3 deserves to be supported by all Zimbabweans who want to see in their lifetimes a prosperous, stable, industrializing, and economically empowered Upper Middle Income society and country:
a) by all accounts, even from the evaluation or assessments by sanctions imposing countries and by International Institutions, like the World Bank and The IMF, Zimbabwe‘s sanctions busted economy is rising and stabilizing, driven by agriculture and mining, and is now rated among the top 10 fastest growing economies in Sub Saharan Africa for 2025 and 2026, with 5% projected growth in 2026 and reduced inflation to single digit annual figures, not to mention the significant infrastructural and other socio economic developments undertaken in a very short period of time, thanks to the able and sound leadership of Our President, Cde Dr ED Mnangagwa.
It is for this reason, and this reason alone, that Zimbabweans are demanding a 2 year extension of President Mnangagwa’s noble and valued service to his motherland, Zimbabwe, for just one last time.
The clarion call should be continuity and consolidation of the achievements gained thus far;
b) CAB3 is not an iota in violation of the Liberation Struggle, as is being alleged by some detractors. Far from it. We fought for one man one vote. True. We got one man one vote in 1980. True. With independence in 1980, thanks to the 15 years (July 1964 – December 1979) of protracted Armed Struggle, every Zimbabwean citizen from the age of 18 years and above got the right to be voted as a people’s representative in Parliament/Local Authorities or to vote to choose persons to represent us in Parliament, with the clear constitutional understanding that when Parliament is set up it will have the power to pass laws on our behalf and for our benefit and, within certain embedded parameters within the Constitution itself, to amend at will the National Constitution, as and when prevailing circumstances demand, for the progress of the Nation and the wellbeing of its people.
That, in a nutshell, is what one man/woman one vote is all about.
Candidates for election to Parliament contest under the banner of Political Parties, and the political party which wins the majority seats in an election forms the government of the day and is empowered to rule the country. Political parties go into an election led by their respective Leaders (already called Presidents, by the way), chosen not by the generality of the population but by their respective Party Congresses.
Wicknel Chivayo US$3.6 million to parliamentarians ill-advised: Chinamasa
