MDC T President, Advocate Douglas Mwonzora has claimed that President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Vice President Constantino Chiwenga may not be Zimbabwean leaders in the next 5 or 10 years to come.
He said this yesterday during an interview with 263times.
The opposition leader said this relating to the recent South African violent protests which saw supermarkets being destroyed and groceries being looted by South African citizens who were expressing their grief following the arrest of former South African president Jacob Zuma.
Mwonzora urged Zimbabweans to distance themselves from violence but rather use dialogue to express their political discontent.
He added that President Mnangagwa and Vice President Constantino Chiwenga might be out of office in the next 5 to 10 years to come hence there was need for Zimbabweans to create a peaceful environment that ensures that everyone out of power is fully protected even when they are out of office.
“We need to change the way we are doing our politics and that is why l’m not a supporter of what is happening in South Africa right now, their treatment of their former president, they should have managed it better because it sends wrong signals for people and discourages people from leaving power so there must be a certain measure of respect and certain measure of decorum with which you treat the former head of state but of cause that’s not to say that crime must be condoned.
“President Mnangagwa, Vice President Chiwenga the leaders of Zanu PF are not growing upside down they are growing and in 10 years time they may not be leaders of this country, in 5 years they may not be the leaders of this country so it is important that we set our political system such that it would not matter who the president is, everybody should feel safe in the country.
“Everybody should feel that their rights are protected, respected and their property rights are not abrogated and this is the essence of dialogue,” said Mwonzora.
Meanwhile, Mwonzora castigated exiled professor Jonathan Moyo strategy of demonstrating as a way to advocate and express discontent in politics insisting that dialogue was a proper way to petition any political grievance in a peaceful manner.
“What is Jonathan Moyo suggesting, the alternative would be what he had been supporting which is the call for demonstrations and it has not worked clearly.
“It has not worked and so it cannot discourage what we are trying to do, let dialogue happen and see whether we will not gain something out of it,” added Mwonzora.
Douglas Mwonzora was former Secretary General of the MDC Alliance before he lost to Chalton Hwende in the 2019 Congress held in Gweru but got reprieve from the Supreme Court ruling that reinstated him to the Secretary General position for MDC-T led by Thokozani Khupe.
However he was elected MDC-T president after defeating Thokozani Khupe in a disputed party presidential election in which he got almost 1,000 votes on 27 December 2020 at the Harare International Conference Centre.
