Six out of the 19 Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD) members united into an electoral pact and renamed themselves Zimbabwe Coalition for Peace and Development (ZCPD) and launched they political party at Holiday Inn yesterday.
Trust Tapiwa Chikohora who is the leader of the Coalition for Democrats (CODE) will be the presidential candidate of ZCPD, Lucia Matibenga being the deputy.
“The six political parties will consider each one of them a distinct, independent and equal partners”, said Chikohora.
They joined force for the sake of elections and will remain members of POLAD as individual parties.
In case they win the elections, “the electoral pact will form an inclusive government that will reflect the face of Zimbabwe”, Chikohora said.
Chikohora said that ZCPD is open for other like-minded political parties and individuals to join their party before and even after the elections. ZCPD extended its olive branch to ZANU PF in an effort ” to build the Zimbabwe we all want”.
ZCPD seek to entrench the culture of democracy through free, fair, transparent and verifiable elections.
After gaining less than 2% of the voters in the 2018 elections and having been rewarded handsomely by President Emmerson Mnangagwa with several packages such as vehicles on the taxi payer’s ticket despite being denied by the citizens in a plebiscite, the POLAD members decided to form a pact so as to democratically remove Mnangagwa from power.
POLAD was formed as a platform to promote dialogue between the president and political opponents who did not win the 2018 elections.
Lovemore Madhuku, one of the opposition members who joined POLAD has been reported saying that since their opposition parties are not part of the government, being part of this forum would allow them to provide input for national development.
According to the late, Alex Magaisa, a political analyst, once stated that, authoritarian leaders like Mnangagwa have numerous ways of trying to eliminate the opposition and consolidate power, including the use of repressive laws or bribing political opponents.
Magaisa then went on to say that, “Mnangagwa, a man who waited more than three decades to rule, has no intention of sharing his power. He is using bribery and incentives to win the opposition.”
The 19 POLAD members were issued with the state-of-the-art Isuzu D-Max vehicles by Mnangagwa who told them that they are to use the cars across the country’s provinces to implement national programmes.
The vehicles worthy US $4,5 million was Mnangagwa’s benevolent gesture to the group in a country which was still outsmarting from the ravages of COVID-19.
In a country were more than 70% of the citizens live below the poverty datum line and surviving on less than US $1 a day, the POLAD members appreciated the vehicles which they used to attend the launch of ZCPD.