Zimbabwean traditional leaders have welcomed dialogue between the ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), saying it is the only way the country can resolve the current hardship worsened by the illegal sanctions imposed by the West, The Herald reported on Tuesday.
Chief Fortune Charumbira, president of the Chiefs' Council, said traditional leaders were pleased by the development and challenged the opposition parties to reciprocate in sincerity and in a patriotic spirit to President Robert Mugabe's offer of dialogue."
As traditional leaders, we are very excited by President Mugabe's statement on dialogue and we hope opposition parties will take that seriously," he said.
Chief Charumbira commended President Mugabe for assenting to inter-party talks and congratulated him for winning last Friday's presidential run-off.
"We congratulate President Mugabe for winning the presidential run-off. The spirit he has shown to hold talks with the opposition is highly commendable. It shows that he is a true Zimbabwean who wants to see peace and unity prevailing in the country," he said.
"As traditional leaders, we support that and we hope the opposition would be forthcoming to the call made by the President to hold talks and work together as one family," he said.
In the same vein, Chief Charumbira pointed out that it was essential that foreigners leave Zimbabweans to negotiate among themselves without interference.
"We urge foreigners to stop raising their voices more than Zimbabweans themselves. They should give Zimbabweans a chance to talk among themselves and eventually forge some unity."
Chief Charumbira's comments came just before a Zanu Ndonga party official's message urging the government to include all stakeholders in the consultations to resolve the challenges facing the country.
The party's organising secretary Gondai Vutuza welcomed Mugabe' s call for dialogue, which he made during his inaugural speech on Sunday soon after being declared President after winning the presidential run-off held on Friday.
He said the president's invitation to dialogue was in the best interests of the country to reduce the current polarisation.
"There is need to include all stakeholders, political parties, churches and civic society. The consultations should not be confined to two major political parties but should extend to everyplayer, Zanu Ndonga included," said Vutuza.
He said it was critical that in undertaking the dialogue, Zimbabweans should be on guard against impositions by external forces.
"We need dialogue, but in doing so, we must not be dictated to by other people who are not Zimbabweans. We need to be wary of some people with ulterior parochial agendas," he said.
Mugabe has agreed to engage the MDC in post-election dialogue following proposals by the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference and heads of Christian denominations, saying it must be "a meeting of our minds and not a meeting of other people's minds through us".
The Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, Patrick Chinamasa, was also quoted over the weekend as saying Zanu-PF was open to talks.
Chinamasa reiterated President Mugabe's call that the people on the negotiating table should be Zimbabweans taking no orders from outsiders.
He also said the negotiations be founded on some key elements that include the non-reversal of the land reform exercise and the removal of illegal sanctions.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe won a landslide victory in the presidential run-off election. The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) announced on Sunday that official results showed that Mugabe won all 10 of the country's provinces.
Mugabe won 85.5 percent of the votes in the election against opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai's 9.3 percent, defeating Tsvangirai by a huge margin, the ZEC said.
Chief elections officer Lovemore Sekeramyi said Mugabe had won a total of 2,150,269 votes against 233,000 for Tsvangirai, whoboycotted the election but whose name still appeared on ballot papers.
Zimbabwe held the presidential run-off election on Friday as scheduled despite opposition MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai's withdrawal from the race. But the ZEC said the withdrawal was of no legal effect because it was filed too late.
Tsvangirai received 47.9 percent of the votes in the first round of election held on March 29, followed by President Robert Mugabe's 43.2 percent.
An outright winner needs to obtain an absolute majority of the votes, otherwise a run-off needs to be held, according to Zimbabwe's law.
Source: Xinhua
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