(Last Updated on March 7, 2022 by zimdaily)
SOUTH AFRICA – A prominent South African opposition leader, Mmusi Maimane, has predicted that Zimbabwe’s ruling ZANU PF party will lose elections to the opposition in 2023. Maimane, who now leads One SA Movement after ditching SA’s main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), said Zimbabwe “will be free” in 2023.
The outspoken One SA Movement recently described President Emmerson Mnangagwa as a “quarter Mugabe”, in reference to the late former Zimbabwe president Robert Mugabe.
Posting on Twitter on Sunday, Maimane said South Africa will pay if vote-rigging is allowed to happen in Zimbabwe in 2023. He wrote:
Next year Zimbabwe will be free… As SA we will not entertain any rigging, oppression of voters or denial of voter rights.
SA pays the price of the oppression in Zimbabwe and we are done. Allow people to vote including the diaspora. The time for corrupt regimes is over.
Maimane recently criticised Mnangagwa for the alleged crackdown on the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) and its leader Nelson Chamisa.
Riot police, armed with batons, tear gas and water cannons violently dispersed CCC supporters who had gathered for a rally in Gokwe Centre, a town located in Zimbabwe’s cotton-growing belt over a week ago.
Maimane slammed Mnangagwa for his alleged thuggery. He tweeted:
Do not use the police to frustrate your political opponents Emmerson Mnangagwa.
You think you are [Russian President Vladimir] Putin but you are quarter [late former Zimbabwean President Robert] Mugabe.
The world is not going to tolerate thuggery anymore. SA is already paying the price for your brutality and corruption.
A CCC member, Mboneni Ncube, was stabbed to death by suspected ZANU PF activists on Sunday last week at a rally that was being addressed by Chamisa in Kwekwe, Midlands.
[sundaytimes]