OPPOSITION politician, Job Sikhala, has said South Africa’s ruling party has undermined the democratic struggle against Zanu PF by endorsing rigged elections in the country.
Sikhala was speaking during an interview with British Broadcasting Corporation HardTalk host, Stephen Sucker, yesterday.
“We have noticed and identified the role the ANC and consecutive ANC governments in South Africa have played to undermine the mass democratic struggle in our country,” Sikhala said.
“Don’t forget these are the same people who forced the global political agreement in our country when Zanu PF and the late Robert Mugabe were defeated in an election.”
Mugabe was forced into a government of national unity with the opposition MDC formations in 2009 during talks led by then South African president Thabo Mbeki.
“The ANC’s role has always been to undermine our people. Fikile Mbalula, the ANC secretary-general, has been releasing controversial statements against the opposition and people of Zimbabwe,” Sikhala said.
“There is no doubt that it’s the ANC’s policy to undermine the democratic forces of the people of Zimbabwe.”
In March, Zanu PF, ANC and other liberation movements held a summit in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to craft strategies on how to push back against the opposition parties and remain in power.
The summit was attended by secretary-generals of Zanu PF, ANC, People’s Movement of Angola, South West Africa’s People’s Organisation of Namibia, Botswana Democratic Party, Chama Cha Mapinduzi of Tanzania and Mozambique’s Frelimo.
Sikhala also blamed President Emmerson Mnangagwa for the problems affecting the opposition party Citizens Coalition for Change.
He is out of the country for treatment claiming he was poisoned during his incarceration at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison.
The former Zengeza West legislator recently launched a new movement, the National Democratic Working Group, which he said would free masses from political chains.
Sikhala said the movement was centred on the wishes and aspirations of the masses.
“The lives of our people are in danger due to unending cycles of poverty, oppression, looting and plundering of national resources and subversion of the will of our people through electoral theft and self-imposition by an unpopular tyranny,” Sikhala said during the launch.
Sikhala said he was prepared to die freeing the people of Zimbabwe from the shackles of economic poverty. NewsDay.
