Elias Mudzuri ready to stand again as Harare Mayor

By Tichaona Sibanda
10 August 2007

Popular former Mayor of Harare, Engineer Elias Mudzuri said he is ready to stand again in next year’s local government elections if the MDC selects him as its candidate.

‘I have a lot of unfinished business in Harare. I was elected by over a million people in the city and I ran council affairs in a very transparent and accountable manner, until Ignatious Chombo started interfering with the work making sure I wouldn’t perform as much as I was supposed to do,’ Mudzuri said.

The popular Mudzuri was first elected Mayor in March 2002, but fell out with Chombo, the local government minister who eventually fired him and the rest of the MDC councillors in 2003, citing gross misconduct. The MDC rubbished the charges saying Zanu (PF) could not stand the fact that the MDC led council was doing extremely well.

He said the short lived council was successful judging by all the handshakes they got from the public, adding that as an engineer he knew the core business of the council. Mudzuri strongly believes the reason why Chombo fired him was because he was trying to undo all the corruption that was greasing the hands of the ruling party members.

He said he is relishing another ‘big fight’ against Zanu (PF) as long as his party gives him the green light to seek re-election. Government tried and failed to nail him on misconduct charges and so far the courts have not made any judgement since 2003.

‘Until the courts decide, I have not accepted my dismissal from council on the basis that it was illegal to follow illegal orders from Chombo to fire me and the rest of our councillors. Chombo has no powers to bar me or any of the other MDC Mayors for seeking re-election,’ Mudzuri said.

In the 2002 elections the MDC won 44 out of 45 council seats. And Mudzuri is adamant next year’s elections would even be better. He says it’s going to be a whitewash. ‘Zanu (PF) will not win anything in Harare. They have become so unpopular people can’t wait for January to chuck them out of council. And it would be worse for them when people chuck them out of government in March, so they are having sleepless nights,’ he said.