New Year’s Message 2016

Dear Citizen,

As this new year dawns, we have the chance to change the direction of our country. We've now got the chance for a fresh start and new leadership in Zimbabwe untainted by corruption or lack of accomplishment of election promises. A new people driven leadership under Freedom Justice Coalition Zimbabwe Party is about shaking up the Zanu PF system of governance based on partisan lines, and ushering a new kind of system of government based on principles of accountability, transparency and inclusivity that gives everyone a sense of belonging and patriotism.

What people want is real change - not just in their politics, but in their lives. Today offers the chance for that change. Our primary goal this year is to transform our beautiful sounding words and promises into practical visible outcomes that have a positive impact on people’s lives.

Our aim is to temporally move away from our social media campaigns and discussions on WhatsApp forums to begin our face to face community conversations with members of the community so there is a two way exchange of views rather than the traditional grand standing rallies where politicians impose their ideologies and ideas in crowded stadiums. Its also important that we ensure we have a copy of the voters roll for each Constituency we intend representing in parliament and therefore encourage our members to register as voters for the upcoming elections.

We assure you that we are here to serve you and therefore believe it’s important for us to listen carefully to your story and challenges that you currently face, so we can look for the best solutions of addressing them once you vote us into power and give us the mandate to be government. Part of our conversation will also allow us to share our vision and mission objectives as a new political party, whilst giving you the opportunity to ask any questions about any aspect of our operations, structures, short and long terms objectives that you may need clarification on.

Freedom Justice Coalition Zimbabwe Party is not ‘a new party’ as in being recently formed as it was formed in August 2010 when we began our planning and research into Zimbabwe politics, but in terms of creating physical presence on the ground we are already two years behind because of the complex financial and resource availability challenges largely influenced by Zimbabwe’s very unstable socio-economic and political environment.

The minimal resources used thus far have come from donations from our volunteer administrators. It is therefore very important for us to get the little we can from members of the public who wish to see our political party become a success as we attempt to dump the traditional approach used in Zimbabwe opposition politics, that has relied mostly on external international donations and that of the ruling party that has been sustained from corrupt illicit deals received from partisan aligned companies who are given contracts and tenders in return for propping up the regimes hold on power.

We believe that our Community Investment Partnerships [Projects] should help us to usher a new self-sustaining model to move away from this retrogressive culture and hopefully create a new blue print that will help Zimbabwe and Africa gradually become less dependent on external donations for development of democracy. Our ability to work with minimal resources will act as a stepping stone to much tighter financial management regimes that are necessity if we want strict fiscal control. Strong financial controls will allow for reliable financial reporting throughout the party/government, which will allow for more solid financial management of the operation. Strong controls also provide greater peace of mind that the accounting data is correct and the money is better protected from potential frauds.

Our public engagement has revealed that most citizens know that our government and more established opposition parties are clueless and divided in terms of having a clear strategy of how to unite Zimbabweans and resuscitate the economy. Government continues in its desperate attempts to resuscitate the economy by selling our resources at a pittance to Chinese and Russians investors with not much attention put towards protecting the interests of local labour and companies. This is creating a debt burden that future governments and future generations may never recover from.

This is certainly not the independence that Zimbabweans expected. Our analysis may sound biased but it is not without praise as we are very grateful for the role the liberations parties played in fighting colonialism and equally the role opposition parties have played in their attempts to keep the Zanu PF government in check in terms of good governance. It’s time for new ideas, our own turn to play our part and take the struggle to a whole new level, a level where hard work is rewarded, a level where everyone has an opportunity to unleash their full potential, a level where we can finally see made in Zimbabwe brands topping the list of world quality products.

This we can all do as long as we believe, come together as a collective and can transform our ideas to visible outcomes. A lot has been said and written but very little transformed to practical outcomes, let’s be the examples that make us Proud Zimbabweans.

Yours in Servitude

Interim President
Freedom Justice Coalition Zimbabwe Party

Mugabe’s Announcement of Declaration of Assets bill: a tactic to Divert attention from failed leadership.

Mugabe’s Announcement of Declaration of Assets bill: a tactic to Divert attention from failed leadership.

By Dumi Senda, FJCZ Interim Spokesperson.

Zimbabweans should by now be used to the bizarre and inconsistent policy announcements by Mugabe and his beleaguered Zanu pf party. 

However, those who are more savvy than Zanu pf spin doctors would give them credit for will also see through the latest announcement by the President that he will be tabling a bill in parliament discussing a new law requiring public officials to declare their assets as a tactic to divert attention from the chronic failures of his government and party.

Only a day after the President caused a media storm for reading the wrong speech in Parliament, the timing of this policy announcement is hardly surprising, and it reveals the disingenuous nature of Zanu pf leadership.

Furthermore, the majority of Zimbabweans who are at the receiving end of the corruption by government officials would find it a hard sell to believe that a mere conjuring up of a policy will have any plausible impact on their lives, given decades of Mugabe and Zanu pf leadership during which corruption multiplied and became institutionalised. 

It is therefore rather rich for the biggest beneficiaries of corruption in Zimbabwe to take a moral high ground on an issue which they have fathered and nurtured. 

Such pronouncements do not represent a commitment to stop the rot blighting the Zimbabwean economy, but rather mere politicking aimed at securing the power interests of the political classes.   

Therefore, Zimbabweans are better advised to demand a new brand of politics based on genuine transparency, accountability and citizen participation, and not mere rhetoric which has become endemic in Zimbabwean politics. 

Similarly, Zimbabwean media have a duty to scrutinise such announcements, and not to be seduced by headline grabbing stories, thereby unwittingly perpetuating the violation of democratic rights of Zimbabwean citizens through miss-information. 

Recycling ‘failed politics’ will deepen Zimbabwe’s Demise

Recycling ‘failed politics’ will deepen Zimbabwe’s Demise, warns Spokesperson of Freedom Justice Coalition Zimbabwe 

Following his interview on Voice of America Studio 7 News on the 9th of September 2015, discussing the manifesto released by the former Zanu pf party member and Vice President of Zimbabwe Joyce Mujuru, in which she promises to ‘save Zimbabwe’, Dumi Senda cautioned Zimbabweans against what he described as “hamster wheel politics”, warning that this will only further deepen the socioeconomic and political crises in Zimbabwe. 

Referencing a book by the internationally acclaimed Zimbabwean author No-Violet Bulawayo “We need new names”, Senda said that as difficult as change is to entertain let alone achieve, recycling old politicians will not bring plausible development to Zimbabwe.
  
According to Senda, what Zimbabwe needs are new ideas underpinned by institutional integrity based on a political system that has clear and implementable processes which can hold any individual accountable. 
In the past three decades, said Senda, Zimbabweans have endured politics based on the whims of individuals who flout party and national constitutions at will to sustain their power. This is not sustainable, he insisted.
What is worse, turning to the same old politics which has been proven to be a complete failure, expecting different results is counterproductive, according to Senda. 

He acknowledged that it will take a lot of time and hard work for Zimbabwean citizens to have faith in new political parties such as Freedom Justice Coalition Zimbabwe (FJCZ), saying that they (FJCZ) are not asking Zimbabweans to trust them but rather they are asking Zimbabweans to trust themselves to be the guardians of Zimbabwean politics by demanding transparency and accountability.

Senda pointed out that what sets FJCZ apart from the old parties in Zimbabwe is that it is a genuine grassroots democratic party built by Zimbabweans across the globe who are at the forefront of community work and activism and professionals who volunteered their time to contribute towards establishing a party which is stronger than any of its members individually. 

One way have ensured that we do not curve in to the ‘failed politics’ symptomatic of Zimbabwean parties is to have citizen participation, transparency and accountability as the unshaken pillars of FJCZ by desisting from clandestine funding sources amongst other things, intimated Senda. 
In the end, while we do not have the benefit of the euphoria generated by ‘celebrity politicians’ in Zimbabwe and the access to the unlimited funds for electioneering by those in control of state coffers, what we undoubtedly have is a new vision for Zimbabwe based on extensive consultation with the grassroots through our flagship Community Outreach initiatives, said Senda. 

It is this which we believe can give Zimbabwean citizens meaningful ownership of their destiny and stir the country away from the inevitable disaster that awaits us if we do not demonstrate necessary courage to depart from the ‘Business As Usual’ approach to politics and enable unrestrained participation of every citizen, he said.  

Courtesy of VOA Studio 7 [Listen to Radio Discussion below]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlkmRuI-aT0

Visit our Facebook Page and website links below:

https://www.facebook.com/freedomjusticecoalitionzimbabweparty

https://www.freedomjusticecoalitionzimbabwe.org/index.php/en/

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https://twitter.com/FJCZIM

https://www.linkedin.com/profile/public-profile

The Zimbabwean Worker

May Day (May, 1)

"Celebrated by workers around the world as an expression of their international solidarity and shared political aspirations for freedom."

Today I honour all Zimbabwean workers in the country and those who chose to migrate out of the country in search of better socio-economic and political enviroments.

With increasing emphasis towards financial bottom lines, social justice, public trust, civic responsibilities and the criteria for success of individual life in this world and in hereafter are frequently put a side. Performance, quality and customer satisfaction are viewed in terms of their impact to financial and economic outcomes only. This has created an imbalance in the life of the working classes versus the minority wealthy elite classes resulting in the growing gap between rich and poor.

Some of it is caused by ignoring personal, family and social aspects and increasing emphasis towards financial bottom lines is the reason there exists this imbalance in the life of the workers at all levels. The result is stress in life, conflicts in family, social distortion, deteriorating performance and low productivity. To overcome this, work-life balance is necessary which is not a recommendation but a Divine order.

The recent xenophobic attacks in South Africa and the growing calls manifesting themselves through the politicisation of migration in more developed countres is a clear sign of the challenges being faced by workers across the world who have been betrayed by misgovernance and growing greed fueled by an unmoderated capitalist pyramid system that consistantly rewards the most wealthy most.
The worst victims of this severe decline of opportunity are low-wage workers themselves. To earn one's own way in order to meet a decent living standard, afford children, and share in community life is essential to one's sense of self-worth. To know the satisfaction of employment, its challenges and learning experiences, and the personal development that comes with mastering jobs is also one of life's basic skills.

Such dependency and removal from the economic mainstream means a loss of integration with society, which is another basic need for a socially progressive environment.This damages the rest of society as the idleness, deprivations and disaffection of the victims leads to health problems, violent behaviour and crime rates. counter-cultures spring up that put violence above the law, corruption over hard work, family over career, being over doing. this simultaneously means tax payers must pay for tax revenues not generated, the health bills not paid and the outlays for damage control without helping solve the underlying problem.

The roots of the malfunctions we see in Zimbabwe are structural and not just monetary.The only way forward would be to have a sweeping political bargain to fix the malfunction. The scale the problem has attained to date makes feasible a radical solution in place of the diffuse and marginal reforms (constitutional) that, correctly or not, have seemed largely ineffectual so far.

It's not yet Uhuru fellow citizens ony we together can change our own enviroments.

"Tisu vanhu vacho! Yithi abantu bakhona! We are the people!" [Courtesy Nathan Banana Blog]