Prominent UK-based Zimbabwean academic and lawyer, Alex Magaisa has said next year’s elections will most likely be characterised by scores of presidential candidates representing briefcase political parties so that they qualify to benefit a free car and unlimited freebies through inclusion into the Political Actors Dialogue.
Posting on Twitter, Magaisa said:
“There’s a parliament of elected representatives that Mnangagwa must engage & account to directly. He avoids it like a plague. Instead, he prioritises a forum of unelected & unelectable individuals called POLAD that has no constitutional status or mandate whatsoever.
The mutilation of the democratic order by creating bogus bodies outside the formal constitutional structures is one of the hallmarks of Mnangagwa’s authoritarian state. POLAD is ED’s parallel parliament, except that no one elected its members because they are unelectable.
He abuses scarce public funds to buy the loyalty of POLAD puppets. Just consider the distinction: elected MPs get loans to buy their cars which they must repay. Unelected & unelectable POLAD members got theirs from ED for free. Pachena! No need to pay back.
One doesn’t have to be soothsayer to predict that there will be scores of presidential candidates with briefcase parties in the 2023 elections. Why not when the qualification for POLAD is to lose a presidential race & the benefits are a free car & unlimited freebies?”
Zwnews
