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President Morgan Tsvangirai's election launch speech
Movement for Democratic Change
February 23, 2008

Visit the MDC's policy document

Ladies and Gentlemen, Mr. Chairman I am proud to stand before you on this historic day. Thank you for the great courage you have shown by coming here today.

There are two gatherings in Zimbabwe today. The dictatorship of Robert Mugabe is gathering in Beitbridge.

The free people of Zimbabwe are gathering here.

The dictatorship is gathering to celebrate the 84th birthday of the dictator.

The people are gathering here to bring about the birth of a new Zimbabwe.

The dictatorship celebrates that they have gotten away with it for another year.

The people celebrate the spirit of our nation that will not die.

The dictatorship is a gathering of the satisfied.

The people here are a gathering of the hungry.

The friends of the dictatorship are satisfied with the past five years of Zimbabwe. They are satisfied with the highest inflation rate in the history of mankind. They are satisfied that a million of our children are out of school.

They are satisfied in cities without electricity, and farms without crops. They are satisfied that a million have died and three million have fled.

The people are not satisfied. The people are hungry. The people are hungry for jobs. We are hungry for education. We are hungry for justice. We are hungry for change. We are hungry for hope. We are hungry for land.

We are hungry.

Each of us, as we leave here, must leave here with a question. As we return to our towns, our villages, our cities and our farms, we return with a question. We must ask this question to everyone we meet. Across the length and breadth of Zimbabwe, we will ask the great question facing the voters of Zimbabwe.

Are you hungry? Are you hungry for jobs? Are you hungry for justice? Are you hungry for change?

ARE YOU HUNGRY?

If you are angry and hungry, then it is time you controlled your destiny and be part of history. Be part of this movement whose proud legacy is that it is the face of change in the country. We remain the legitimate drivers of the democratization of this country. We are aware of the historical burden placed on shoulders but we will walk the path and complete this change.

In March 2007, we briefly became world figures-our picture appeared on television screens around the world. Why were our pictures shown around the world? We were not rock and roll musicians; We had not won the Olympics.

We made the news because we were bleeding. After a peaceful prayer meeting, after three days in the custody of the dictatorship, some of us were released and we were still bleeding.

We appreciate the attention given to us by the world news media, but that really wasn't news.

All of Zimbabwe is in the custody of the dictatorship and we are all bleeding. Every one of us.

We are beaten, but we are unbowed, we are bleeding, but we are marching. We are weak with hunger, but we are strong with anger.

When we leave here, we leave here with two questions. We will ask every person we meet, are you hungry? And are you angry?

We have a lot to be angry about.

As the people gather here, and as the dictatorship gathers over there, each group has a political party. The party of the dictatorship has a political party-Zanu-PF. And the people have a political party-MDC.

The Movement for Democratic Change was born out of the failure by ZANU PF to implement the ideals of the liberation struggle, in particular the extension of freedoms to all as well as economic emancipation of Zimbabweans.

The working people's convention of February 1999, laid the foundation for our historic movement and placed in our hands the peoples mandate to deliver change and usher in a new government that is accountable to the people.

The recent people's convention has reaffirmed the desire of the people of Zimbabwe not to reform but to transform our nation. Some day Zimbabwe will be a democracy. When it is, it will have many national, democratic parties.

When it does, those national, democratic parties will move in and out of power as they solve, or fail to solve, the problems of the people. That is for the future, today is now.

Today, the only alternative to the party of the people is the party of the dictatorship.

Some mornings, when I have nothing else to do, I read the Herald. You should try it. I especially enjoy reading the Herald when they say that the MDC has no program.

The dictatorship has a program, or course. Poverty, exile, starvation, disease-that's been the program of the dictatorship for the past five years.

And the Herald says we can't top it.

They say that the MDC has no program-and they say one other thing-that the president of the MDC is a union leader and a miner and a man of no education.

Well one successful political leader worked as a waiter in a restaurant. He said that politics is a lot like being a waiter-you listen to the people-and you bring them what they want. That's not a bad definition of democracy.

For the last few weeks l have been around the country and I've been listening to the people. When I was a miner, I learned to listen to what people are saying. That's something that professors who have degrees in economics sometimes never learn.

I have been there under a tree, in small little huts, at the dip tank and in the various communal fields. I listened to the people. What the people have been saying to me is that they are having to walk for many miles because of the unavailability of transport. They are having to go for days without eating a single meal.

On this listening tour l have been witnessing unprecedented cases of deepening poverty, collapse of general infrastructure and the desperation with which people have tried everything possible in order to survive. I was touched by the sincerity of their desperation.

The people are not talking about parliamentary seats, senatorial seats or an opportunity to go to the state house. l agree with them, that the focus of this campaign and indeed the ideals of our struggle is how we can serve the people.

So based on my listening-and the listening of the other leaders of the MDC, we have developed our program, our MDC manifesto. The MDC manifesto puts the issue of the constitution at the centre of our struggle. The autocratic state in Zimbabwe has vandalized and abused its citizens and created weak institutions. We therefore need a new constitution to articulate a new dialogue and discourse. A constitution that will engender trust and confidence amongst our brutalized people. That constitution should be made by the people and for the people.

We believe the Zimbabwean economy is an enclave economy that is uneven, unequal and virtually dead. The challenge of the MDC is to craft an alternative human centered, auto-centric economic program that is based on domestic demands, use of local resources, domestic savings ad people based regional integration. At the centre of this alternative economic program must be institutionalized stakeholder participation through the Zimbabwe Economic development Council which we created in our full economic blueprint RESTART. Restart still remains our fundamental economic recovery vehicle whose key tenet is strong Social Democratic state based on three pillars.

• Participatory Democracy based on constitutionalism and the rule of law.
• A strong economy based on sound social economy.
• A progressive growth with oriented redistributive state.

Thirdly, we need to trade in our centralized government for local autonomy and devolution.

In democracies, people feel safe. They know and trust their local leadership, and public confidence in more distant government builds on the confidence people have in the government they know.

The Dictatorship does not want people to be confident-it wants them to be afraid. Decisions are taken away from the people and made in dark and distant places because they cannot stand the light of day.

Our next point is the rule of law. At its most fundamental, the rule of law means no one is above the law. The dictatorship thinks that Robert Mugabe is above the law. He thinks he can do whatever he wants, that the law must be applied selectively and some getting away with impunity, murder, arson, and rape.

The rule of law means that no one in government can do anything that the people have not authorized government to do. An MDC government will remember that all of us are under the law.

The rule of law leads directly to our next point-the end of corruption. Government should serve the people, not steal from them. Zanu is a kleptocracy. That's a fancy word that means a government of thieves.

Zimbabwe is one of the world's great humanitarian crises-we need food, drugs, medical care. The nations of the world are helping-but we need more.

Zanu cannot ask for more because the dictatorship does not admit there is a problem.

Beyond humanitarian aid, we need the help of the world to rebuild our economy but more than anything else we must look after our own.

Today, the devastation is much greater, and the funds we need will be larger. Nations from the East and West will be called on to help. We need $10billion-not $10 billion Zimbabwe, but $10billion US.

The world has watched as Zanu has destroyed our nation. They know that Robert Mugabe is one of the great tyrants of the 21st century. When we bring him down, they will be there to help.

As we raise money to rebuild our nation, we need to focus on four groups of our society have a special call on our resources.

First are the war veterans, those who served our nation in our war of independence. The war veterans gave their loyalty to the cause of our liberation and they have remembered Zanu as the party for liberation for these twenty-eight years.

But the truth is the war veterans are among the most exploited of our people. Their courage is no defense against the devastation brought by the dictatorship. If the war veterans want to know what the government could have and should have done for them, they need to look at the other nations of the world. In those countries veterans are loved and respected by all the people. Veterans are represented in the cabinet, honored for their serviced and helped with medical care, housing, and education for their children. Our veterans have been neglected for twenty-eight years-and they are not getting any younger. The time to help them is now.

Second, are victims of Operation Murambatsvina. We need a fund to help those people rebuild the homes and businesses that were destroyed, including grants to buy building materials. The world community watched the Operation Murambatsvina in horror and are especially ready to offer assistance.

Third are the people of Matabeleland. We cannot restore the life that was lost during the Gukurahundi. But we can rebuild the devastated communities. We can build roads and schools and make loans to people to establish income-generating projects. We can also create special economic zones, exempt from taxation during the period of rebuilding.

Fourth, those small businesses that were crippled and closed by the policies of the past year. Supermarkets, butcheries, grinding mills are essential to life in the rural areas. Bus fleets and bus operators must be put back to work.

An MDC government will establish national trust funds to aid each of these three groups within our nation. We must rebuild our nation as one family-but take special care in our family for those who have special claims on us.

The MDC has a program of land reform. The dictatorship's land policy has created famine in one of the best farming nations of the world.

Here are six things an MDC government will do as our promise to the people.

First, we will carry out an independent audit of land to establish the physical and legal status of all holdings. After the disasters of the past eight years, every landowner must answer two questions for the people. Where did you get this land-how good is your claim-and what are you doing with it? Are you using land productively for the people?

Second, based on the principle of need and ability, we will implement and coordinate a participatory all inclusive and well planned resettlement programme.

Third, we will design and define the recommended minimum and maximum land holdings per region.

Fourth, we will ensure the enactment of laws that guarantee the ownership of one household per one land holding.

Fifth, we will introduce an equitable Land Tax to discourage land wastage.

Sixth, we will carefully manage the transition to a people driven and human centered land market.

So much of Zimbabwe's current problems started with the dictatorship's land policy. And those policies cannot be changed until the dictatorship is swept away.

Zimbabwe can and will feed itself again-for the good of the nation and all those who work upon the land.

The five killer diseases of childhood our in retreat around the world; except in Zimbabwe. Our child mortality rates our now the highest in the world. The dictatorship has destroyed our once strong health care system. Our trained health care professionals have been forced into the Diaspora. An MDC government will rebuild our medical system and bring our doctors, nurses, and other health professionals.

After independence, education and literacy spread across our land. That was one of the proudest achievements of the new government-one of the best records in all of Africa. Now, we are one of the worst-1.5 million children out of school, and the government throws teachers in jail.

We need to change our foreign policy. We need to replace our warrior foreign policy with a commercial foreign policy. We won our independence twenty-eight years ago-but the dictatorship continues to engage in a battle with shadows. The dictator is engaged in a long running battle with Britain-with Tony Blair as long as he was in power, and now that Blair is gone, maybe with the Queen. This battle cuts the people of Zimbabwe off from the world's commerce and does no damage whatever to the Queen of England. It's time to take yes for an answer. Yes we are independent; and Yes we are ready to participate in the prosperity that other English speaking nations have enjoyed.

We need to present Zimbabwe once again as the best tourist destination in Africa. Zanu, of course, does not really want people from Europe or America to come to Zimbabwe-we welcome them. We need real money. The Zimbabwe dollar, once the strongest currency in Africa, is now the weakest in the world-indeed some say the weakest in the history of the world.

The new Zimbabwe will have a new Zimbabwe dollar. A dollar that has value again; that the people can trust. With the destruction of our currency has been the destruction of our pensions. Hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans need to know that we will pay their pensions in those new Zimbabwe dollars.

Our civil servants must be paid in real money. Our soldiers and policemen, our doctors and nurses, our teachers and professors-and all those who work hard for our countries good and cry silently at night, weeping at what has happened to their country and their families-they will be paid in real money in the new Zimbabwe.

Real money is also essential for our national security. Fortunately we live at peace with our neighbors-even the bravest soldier cannot defend our nation without modern equipment. Today we have no foreign currency to buy the basic requirements of a modern defense force. In addition to equipping our soldiers and police, we need to address their needs. They too have families that need schools and hospitals; and we want them to be loved and admired by their fellow citizens as they once were.

Twelve points from the MDC manifesto. Not just promises-things we will do. And each is something Zanu cannot do-because each one undermines the system that keeps Zanu in power.

Now, I want to speak directly to the people of Zimbabwe.

This election is about dealing with generational and political transitional challenges. We have to understand that this election is a referendum on Mugabe's misrule over the past thirty years.

We are not the cause of our poverty. The dictatorship is the cause. We need to move away from the political culture of patronage, corruption and intolerance.

We want to work. The dictatorship has destroyed our jobs. Are you angry?

We want to teach our children. The dictatorship has destroyed our schools.

Are you angry?

We want to eat. The dictatorship has destroyed our food. Are you angry?

Are you hungry? Are you angry?

In conclusion l want to say that the people of Zimbabwe are not fools. They have been in the trenches for a long time. They know the dictator and his many forms. They are hungry and they are angry. They have been beaten with us, they have bled with us. We promise them hope and love, justice and truth..

We have a covenant with them. We will not break it. I as Morgan Tsvangirai will not break the promise l have made with and to the people. That promise is that together we will walk to the motherland of change, to a new Zimbabwe.

Vote MDC. The time is now.

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