Leader of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) and Zanu PF politician Christopher Mutsvangwa has said the country’s security forces will come in handy to defend the ruling party against would-be protesters on July 31.
Describing the dissenting masses as ‘MDC dreamers’, Mutsvangwa said Zanu PF fought the liberation struggle which brought birth to the ‘defence and security apparatus’ who will be prepared to ‘defend the Zimbabwe Constitution’ against those harbouring intentions of taking to the streets.
“Our MDC dreamers, if they think they want to seize power here, they must go and look for a safe country somewhere else,” Mutsvangwa told journalists in Harare yesterday.
“When they are on this soil of Zimbabwe it will not happen because the defence and security apparatus which we fought for and gave birth to will be there to defend the Constitution of Zimbabwe.
“And I want to welcome and hail the decision of our security forces when they issued the statement publicly and unequivocally supporting the President to say that they will not tolerate an extra constitutional change of governments,” he said.
The ruling party has been fretting over the impending protests organised by hard-pressed Zimbabweans who have endured years of economic turmoil blamed on the long-ruling Zanu PF.
Speaking in a separate press conference, acting Zanu PF spokesperson Patrick Chinamasa said the ruling party will not ‘fold hands and watch while hostile forces organise (protests) to put (our people) at risk (of the Covid19 pandemic).
“Zanu PF is alert to the fact that when this pandemic knocked on our doors, our detractors earmarked us to succumb to Covid-19 and postulated wrongly that this pandemic was going to leave a trail of unburied corpses rotting in the streets,” he said.
“They were so confident because of the manner in which the same detractors have incapacitated our health system through illegal sanctions. However, our leadership has steered us thus far and rendered those false prophecies and devil’s wishes unfulfillable,” said Chinamasa.
The countdown to the July 31 protests has resulted in a vicious police blitzkrieg on activists, notably Jacob Ngarivhume of Transform Zimbabwe and hard-hitting investigative journalist Hopewell Chin’ono who stand accused of inciting public violence.
Hopewell Chin’ono at the courts yesterday
Ngarivhume has been fronting the so-called July 31 Movement while Chin’ono has routinely exposed the corrupt tendencies of the Zanu PF regime.
Since the era of dethroned late dictator Robert Mugabe, the ruling Zanu PF Government has primarily depended on the military forces to stifle dissent.
Mugabe’s successor and incumbent President Emmerson Mnangagwa has also adopted the same political strategies of his despotic predecessor.
state media
Additional Reporting: Zwnews
