We are less than three months to year-end. This means we are about to begin 2023, the year during which Zimbabwe goes back to the polls.
Since independence, our country has religiously stuck to its electoral calendar. Next year will not be an exception. Such discipline should be ingrained deeply in our national political and electoral character; it makes for lasting stability.
International observers will be invited
As in 2018, Zimbabwe will hold elections in the full glare of world attention. This is our pledge as the Second Republic. We have nothing to hide, and I will ensure Government invites the international community to observe our elections. However, no observer mission invites itself; or seeks to impose its own timetable on us. Everything will run according to the times we prescribe as Government, and in terms of our national laws, policies and goodwill. Let me remind our external partners that Zimbabwean elections are only monitored by Zimbabweans. Outsiders only observe our elections. It is a matter of respecting our sovereignty, and of complying with international practices.
National laws and African protocols will guide us
Even as we invite the international community, we firmly believe our elections are African and for Africa.
Indeed, the forthcoming elections will be the Zimbabwean Chapter to African democracy.
The laws and protocols on which the polls will run are African. I believe Africa is well- equipped to mind its own elections and electoral processes; we have adequate national laws; Africa has developed adequate rules and electoral guidelines, whether as SADC, other sub-regional groupings, or as the AU.
To that end, we will place greater store and value on expectations, views and judgments of Africa, our mother continent. It has the prime mandate to peer-review us. We reject as outrightly unfair and unjust any attempts to prejudge our polls; or to turn our polls into excuses or justification for preconceived hostile policies against our country.
Our partners will be invited
Beyond our continent, friendly countries and groupings we relate to will also be invited. These have been our all-weather partners in development; they also invite us to observe their elections and/or elective events; they thus deserve a special place in our plebiscitary processes.
We commit to free, fair and transparent polls
We undertake and commit ourselves to running clean, transparent, free and fair elections. Since 2018, many reforms have been made to our electoral laws and practices. We continue to review our whole electoral regime and ethos, to keep pace with expectations of our citizens, and to align ourselves to best practices. Our Parliament is the forum for considering any such changes. Genuine reforms are always organic; they must issue from our own people, not from outsiders.
No to political violence!
No violence will be tolerated, whether before, during or after elections. Every citizen must feel safe and secure enough to cast his or her vote, in an environment of total peace, which must abide long after the plebiscite. No democracy, no development takes place under conditions of division, conflict or senseless contestation. Our country is in a hurry to meet its Vision 2030.
Free environment for peaceful campaigns
All parties and individuals wishing to compete for public office, at whatever level, will be allowed to chase their democratic dreams and desires. But these desires must be pursued in a lawful manner, and in total peace. All parties and individuals will be free to canvass for support, without let or hindrance, once the election period begins. Only that way do we lay claim to a free, fair and democratic election we all aspire for.
Parties must ensure peace within own ranks
Soon, certainly during this side of the year for my party ZANU PF, internal party processes will play out in readiness for the harmonised elections. These range from filling local structures to filling national positions provided for by structures of respective parties. Parties will also have primary elections through which prospective candidates for the 2023 Harmonised General Elections are selected.
Peace is owed all of us
Let me stress that while these processes are for parties to handle, national peace during those activities is owed all of us! Peace in your home, in your party is a building block to national peace.
We cannot let slip of peace merely because violence is perpetrated by or within any one party, whatever the cause or circumstances. I thus urge all parties to underwrite and ensure peace and harmony during their respective internal party processes.
This is where we begin to cultivate and build peace for our nation. A cadre who visits violence on a fellow party member is unlikely to spare the same on a member of a political party which is not his own.
An affair for Zimbabweans only
For the avoidance of doubt, let me restate that stakeholders and stockholders in Zimbabwe’s harmonised general elections are Zimbabwean citizens only.
This, in part, is what we mean when we say “Nyika inotongwa nevene vayo”; what we mean when we say Zimbabwe belongs to, and is governed by, Zimbabweans only. Zimbabweans alone also bear the full burden and sole responsibility of rebuilding and growing their economy and country, a position we clinch through a kindred mantra: Nyika inovakwa nevene vayo.
These two mantras draw clear and indelible boundaries on who is a lawful actor in national processes, including in the impending harmonised elections.
The PVO Act will put an end to foreign meddling
I have had to stress this point because we continue to get reports of a few hostile countries that are trying, through their embassies here, to persistently meddle in, and to manipulate our electoral processes.
Today, I call them to order, warning them against challenging our hard-won sovereignty, which is embodied in all our national processes, including elections.
Quite often, these hostile countries use political NGOs they deliberately set up; they fund and run as Trojan Horses here.
It is this kind of mischief, this wanton abuse of our goodwill, which has forced us to introduce the PVO Bill in our Parliament.
I am ready to sign this Bill into law once Parliament has done its part.
It is a law which has countless siblings in different jurisdictions, including those of Governments counselling and urging us against it.
Genuine NGOs have nothing to fear
Honest and well-meaning NGOs have nothing to fear. They will be allowed to go about their humanitarian work, without let or hindrance.
Those peddling or saddled with foreign interests and agendas have a lot to worry about; we will act on them once we establish they have betrayed their mandate.
This includes banning and kicking them out of our country.
Let peace reign in our nation as we head towards the 2023 Harmonised General Elections!
