Linda Masarira fumes
06 December 2018
By Zimbo24news Team
MDC-T spokesperson Linda Masarira is up in arms about the decision taken by War veterans to call for the revision of the minimum presidential age limit from 40 to 52 years. “In that case they can as well just raise the voter age to 52 vovhoterana ikoko (then they elect each other there).”
Linda continued , “We will not allow such discrimination which is a gross violation of section 56 of the Constitution of Zimbabwe.It is time to activate our petition on discrimination against age which is a violation of section 56 of the constitution of Zimbabwe. We can’t allow more than 64% of our population which is below 36 to be discriminated against when it comes to governance issues Arise Zimbabwean youths.
“If ever there has been a time for Zimbabwean youths to come together and defend their future it is now. We have fought so hard against exclusion of youths and this move is totally unacceptable and uncalled for.”
Masarira said she is going to fight against ageism and the discriminatory suggestions by the war veterans.
“When War Vets went to the war of liberation, they fought for majority rule, land ownership, liberation from white supremacy and colonialism. As a young person in Zimbabwe, I will not tolerate nor entertain such discriminatory suggestions or intentions by the war veterans fummed Masarira.”Youth in Zimbabwe have suffered from vicious cycles of exclusion since time immemorial and we will not allow a minority of over 52’s to violate our Social and Political rights as enshrined in section 67 of the constitution of Zimbabwe. We will not allow discrimination of the younger generation as it is a violation of section 56 of the constitution of Zimbabwe.
“We need a generational convergence and not an extension of clueless old men and women running the affairs of our country at the same time destroying the destiny of the younger and future generations.”
Meanwhile the War Veterans insists that they are within their rights to express an opinion which has the potential to shape national discourse.
A source in the structures of the ZNLWVA who spoke to Zimbo24news.com on condition of anonymity said, “The War Veterans are a group of mature and experienced citizens of this nation who like any other citizens continue to enjoy freedom of expression as enshrined in our Constitution.Therefore as an Association we made a suggestion through a resolution which we hope will be a point for discussion at our upcoming Annual People’s Conference in Esigodini starting on the 10th of December 2018”.
He continued; “As an affiliate organisation to the ZANU PF Party we have the privedge to suggest topics for discussion as part of the agenda.It is is therefore entirely up to the Conference delegates to debate and adopt our recommendations if they see merit in them.So it is entirely out of the way for Opposition parties and their activists to make noise and try to intimidate the War veterans into abandoning their internal Party position”.
The source continued; ” The problem is with the Generational Consensus guys who thought by running under the Youth Card they had some generational perculiarities which made them more important than the older generation.Now this is checkmate time”.
He said that it was the considered view of the War Veterans that the nation’s liberal policies were being abused by a group of excitable and immature young generation of politicians.He contended that if left unchecked this will have a negative bearing on state of national security and thus had to be checked.
The War veterans on Tuesday adopted a resolution to force ZANU PF national conference to change the constitution and revise the presidential age limit to 52 years, while the age for Senators starts at 40 and that for Members of Parliment was proposed at a minimum of 18years.
This proposal if adopted will most definitely deal a deadly blow to the aspirations of one ambitious Presidential candidate of the July 30 plebcite Mr Nelson Chamisa who may have to wait until 2033 to contest for Presidency in Zimbabwe.