Tsvangirai to address Budiriro campaign rally on Sunday

By Tichaona Sibanda
12 May 2006

With less than a week to go before the crucial Budiriro by-election in Harare MDC President Morgan Tsvangirai is visiting the constituency on Sunday to drum-up support for their candidate, Emmanuel Chisvuvure. He will round off his visit there by addressing a rally at Budiriro 4 grounds in the afternoon.

Chisvuvure is standing against Gabriel Chaibva from the Mutambara faction and Zanu (PF)’s Jeremiah Bvirindi in a by-election set for the 20th May. The Budiriro parliamentary seat became vacant after the death of Gilbert Shoko, a pro-Tsvangirai supporter who died early this year.

Chisvuvure, a founder member of the MDC who worked under the late Shoko in the constituency is confident of retaining the seat for his faction.
He described his challengers as opportunists ‘people without credibility’ as they have never been involved with Budiriro before.

His election manifesto urges residents in the constituency to shame the criminals who destroyed their homes under murambatsvina. He has pledged to fight for the freedom of all people in Budiriro as well as defend the rights of all vendors and people selling their vegetables and wares to look after their families and children.

‘All what I am telling people is I believe the final solution to the national crisis lies in having a new democratic constitution and a new Zimbabwe. As such let’s all vote MDC. Let’s vote for food and jobs and let’s vote for security and freedom,’ Chisvuvure said.

He said it would be hard for Zanu (PF) to win in Budiriro considering all the hardships and torment faced by the residents at the hands of soldiers and intelligence operatives in the last six years. The late war veteran leader Chenjerai Hunzvi used his surgery in Budiriro as a torture house. In the period leading to and after the parliamentary and Presidential elections in 2000 and 2002 respectively, the CIO and green bombers invaded nightclubs and public bars to terrorise and rape innocent victims in the constituency.