JOHANNESBURG, South Africa – Former tourism and foreign minister Walter Mzembi will lead a new party which says it will contest future elections.
The People’s Party said it notified the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) of its existence in November last year, but just recently appointed its interim leadership.
Mzembi – currently living in exile in South Africa – will lead the new party deputised by Lloyd Msipa, a lawyer based in the United Kingdom.
Godfrey Gandawa, a former deputy minister for higher education also now living in exile following the collapse of Robert Mugabe’s government in November 2017, is the secretary general of the new party.
“We are a political party that believes Zimbabwe belongs to all who live in it. The mission of the People’s Party is to establish for the first time in our history, a fair and just society which will enable the people of Zimbabwe to unleash their talents and ingenuity so that their potential can be fully realised,” Msipa said.
Msipa said they moved to form the new party out of “exasperation with the stalemate between the two main parties in Zimbabwe, Zanu PF and the MDC.”
The People’s Party, Msipa said, was an “agent of regeneration of our politics”.
He said they would mobilise the Zimbabwean diaspora to be actively engaged with the politics of the country, adding: “The Zanu PF government is conscious of the potent force politically that the diaspora can become.”
Meanwhile, another political party, the Zimbabwe People’s Party, has written to Mzembi to complain about the “use of part of our name”.
“We take this to be poor political practice which will definitely affect voters in any future election that our party (ZPP) and your party (PP) will participate in,” the Zimbabwe People’s Party said.
