R.G. Mugabe

‘Let the people’s voice thunder’



THIS is the full text of President Mugabe’s foreword to the Zanu-PF Election Manifesto that was launched in Harare yesterday.

ONCE again, the Party and Government, in strict compliance with our national Constitution, have fixed the date, 29th March, for the country’s General Election, which this time is a harmonised one, that includes the Presidential, the Senate, the House of Assembly and Local Council elections, all in one. Our dynamic Party, Zanu-PF, has submitted its own candidates for nomination across the board. We thus now stand ready, very ready, to embark with vigour on our multi-faceted election campaign.

The focus of our campaign should clearly derive from our chosen theme for the Election, which is "Defending our Land and National Sovereignty: Building Prosperity through Empowerment".

We are the champions of the national struggle against British colonialism, who delivered Independence in 1980, who have remained its stalwart defenders and whose pledge each day, as the sun rises and the sun sets, is "Zimbabwe will never be a colony again".

For us, decolonisation was not only the political attainment of universal suffrage (one man/woman one vote) nor was it just the mere achievement of a wholly African government.

No, it also fundamentally meant the achievement of new property relations as we became complete owners of our land and its natural resources.

In the process, therefore, as we exploit and beneficiate our resources to create national wealth, with substantial per capita benefits, we should continue to pursue national empowerment programmes across the sectors.

Since the condition of the individual is often the condition of the nation, our Party as Government will always prioritise education as the sine qua non of our development strategy.

Imparting knowledge, training, skills and experience in our educational path will, as the 28 years of our government has proved, equip our nation for the developmental tasks and programmes we adopt in all our sectors — agriculture, manufacturing, commerce, infrastructure, social services, and small and medium enterprises.

Our post-election development programmes will necessarily emphasise agriculture in both quantitative and qualitative terms, in order to yield more food crops for both consumption and export purposes, with more technologically advanced methods of beneficiation and manufacturing of commodities. New technology will be acquired where necessary.

Our education programme, now universally acclaimed, must advance itself against the background of new technology, especially that of electronics. And yet the old adage that perceptually links mind and body, namely, mens sana in corpore sano (healthy mind in a healthy body), will always continue to receive our attention, particularly now in the invidious situation where the HIV and Aids pandemic remains a killer of vast numbers of our people. Hence special care will now have to be given to health, especially in the rural areas.

In our fight against foreign interference, and the fight against sanctions, we shall always strive to maintain our solidarity and co-operation with all our regional and international friends, bilaterally and also through all regional and international organisations of which we are members, such as Sadc, Comesa, African Union, Non-Aligned Movement and the United Nations.

As a people-oriented Party, Zanu-PF has always stood for unity and oneness, regardless of the tribe, region, religion, and political grouping to which one belongs. Our national heroes are always celebrated by us in the name of unity, for the blood they shed was shed for the liberation of all of us. Hence when freedom came, it was national freedom, bequeathing national independence, with national sovereignty and the national pride of an ever fluttering national flag, forever refusing to be the Union Jack or to make way for it.

We speak for the people and shall always govern in their name, for Zanu-PF is the only people’s party. Let the People’s Voice thunder across the whole country on the 29th of March, rejecting and damning once and for all the bootlicking British stooges, traitors and sellouts, political witches and political prostitutes, political charlatans and two-headed political creatures. Let the People’s Vote be the People’s Voice. Indeed, Zanu-PF is already the People’s Voice.

Victory is certain! A luta continua!