The solution to Zimbabwe’s political and economic crisis lies in the country getting its politics right, United Movement for Devolution (UMD) leader, Lovemore Moyo has said.
Zimbabweans have been undergoing a series of economic challenges, most of them dating back to the 2000 chaotic land reform exercise that has seen the government struggling to feed its citizens.
The country’s currency which at one point was ditched when inflation reached over 231 million percent in 2008, continues to deteriorate.
“I think the first thing that we need to do is to accept that we are pursuing the wrong politics,” said Moyo.
“We must get our politics right. What do I mean by that? We need to make sure that we elect people who are capable of changing and exercising their independent thinking within government. So it’s about the quality of leadership that we should elect. What we have been seeing populist politics which in most cases really has nothing to do with the quality of individuals. As long as we still move in that direction we will always have the same problems confronting us.”
The former MDC-T national chairman said the country also needs to reform its electoral laws
“We need an electoral outcome that would be uncontested at the end of the day in order to generate confidence and attract investors into the country,” he said.
“So if we are unable to do that then it becomes extremely difficult to expect economic development and our economy to grow in this country. So we need to fix our politics, we need to address the issues of military control and involvement in the governance of the country. We need to address that as well.”
He added: “So these are the things that we need to address if we are to really achieve economic growth and development in this country. So, let’s fix our politics, the issues of violence that we have, we must make sure that we denounce violence, and the issues of election rigging that are spoken about. These issues must not be present in our politics if we are to come out of the problems that we are in now.”
