HARARE – The MDC vowed to go ahead with a planned ‘Hope of the Nation Address’ by its leader Nelson Chamisa after police refused to authorise the event which was slated for Africa Unity Square in Harare on Wednesday.
The party, after failing to secure police authorisation, said it had moved the event to its headquarters in central Harare and “every citizen of Zimbabwe is welcome to attend”.
“We are definitely going ahead with the programme,” MDC spokesman Daniel Molokele said on Tuesday night.
“The event will be held at 10AM at the headquarters of the party, the Morgan Richard Tsvangirai House.”
Police have previously sealed off venues for the MDC’s planned activities, approving just one of the party’s last 10 events – a weekend rally in the suburb of Mabvuku addressed by the party’s deputy leader, Lynette Karenyi.
MDC officials met the police last Friday and were told that they were prohibited from going ahead with their programme, which is set to be attended by foreign diplomats.
In a letter to the party, Chief Superintendent Oscar Mugomeri, the police commander in the Harare CBD, said they feared that the MDC event would be “taken advantage of by rogue elements”.
“The ordinary citizens in the country are experiencing economic hardships so any call for the public meeting in the CBD might be taken advantage of by the already agitated citizens and violence might erupt,” Mugomeri said.
Police also said the fact that the MDC had invited diplomats “who happen to fall under our constitutional mandate as far as their security is concerned” meant that “it would be very difficult to guarantee their security at a venue we deem to be inappropriate because of the above mentioned circumstances.”
Mugomeri added that he was “not in a position to sanction the event.”
Chamisa hopes to lay his party’s vision and action plan as the country goes through its worst economic crisis in over a decade.
Tendai Biti, Chamisa’s deputy, said on Twitter: “Judged by every conceivable quantitative measure, the last two years have been the worst in the history of this country. The task is to salvage the past and find new consensus, new redemption, new dreams.”
