The ManicaPost
THE ruling party is oiling its machinery ahead of the forthcoming by-elections in Mutasa South and Dangamvura-Chikanga parliamentary constituencies.
The two constituencies were orphaned following the recalling of former MDC Alliance legislators, Messrs Regai Tsunga and Prosper Mutseyami respectively.
Veteran legal practitioner and ZANU PF Manicaland provincial secretary for legal affairs, Cde Misheck Mugadza, who narrowly lost to Mr Tsunga during the 2018 harmonised elections, has thrown his hat in the ring again to wrestle the seat from the opposition. Despite his energy-sapping loss in the previous elections , Cde Mugadza continued working in the constituency as the shadow legislator and made light work of his contender, Cde John Madhanzi, during the revolutionary party’s internal elections to choose the people’s preferred candidate for the seat. During the primary elections, Cde Mugadza polled 4 212 votes against Cde Madhanzi’s 645.
After successfully being nominated as ZANU PF’s candidate, The Manica Post News Editor, Cletus Mushanawani managed to tie down the ever busy aspiring legislator for an interview to understand how the bearded politician balances his professional, political, farming and philanthropic life.
CM: Good day Advocate Mugadza. Tell us who is Misheck Mugadza, the legal practitioner, politician, farmer and board member of a number of organisations?
MM: Misheck Mugadza was born on July 17, 1966. I grew up in Buhera during the time of the liberation struggle. I became emotionally attached to the struggle as a young man. At independence, I was about 14 and old enough to be conscious of my surroundings.
I joined the youth league of ZANU PF by natural process because I grew up in a ZANU PF family. I started getting positions from the party’s cells up to the province where I am the secretary for legal affairs.
I have been secretary for finance, acting secretary for administration, positions that I enjoyed very much. I am a person whose ambition is to see people happy, well and leading a good life. This started from my childhood. I discovered that to be able to help people, you need to be a bridge between those who have and those who do not have.
Over the years, I have discovered that each time I encounter a situation where the community deserves help, I always have helpers coming on board to assist. In order to carry out that mission, I discovered that I need to be an MP because MPs sit on a vantage position where they are able to manoeuvre and to assist other people. That is what motivated me to run for political office.
CM: This is your second time contesting for the right to represent the people of Mutasa South in the August House after your loss to Mr Tsunga during the 2018 harmonised elections. You continued working with the people and what motivated you to remain in touch with the grassroots as some politicians desert the masses upon their defeat?
MM: The desire to see a change in people’s lives motivated me to continue working with the grassroots.
When I was campaigning for the 2018 harmonised elections, yes I wanted to win in order to occupy that vantage position, but even when I lost I realised that I could still be the shadow MP. This is why I continued with my projects,I had more time to be with the people.
I cherish and enjoy working with the people. Almost 13 000 people voted for me during the 2018 harmonised elections and I was so touched by the support.
I know my time will come one day. I was not worried at all about the defeat because I know God has His time, so this time I believe it is my time because I have moved with the people since 2018. I also feel the people are with me.
I will continue working with the people even if I fail to win the by-elections. I will only stop when there is no aorta of strength in my body to assist the needy. At the moment anyone who comes to me and cannot afford the services of a doctor will get that assistance.
The good thing is that the doctors will not charge me because they offer voluntary services. These doctors also have the same ambition like me to assist the less privileged to make a difference in society.
CM: We know that your hands are always full because of your ever busy schedule, how do you balance all these things and still have time for your family?
MM: I give it to the Lord. Sometimes I wonder how I do that, but I manage. On all the boards I sit, I never miss meetings. I am one of those people who always receive a pat on the back for religiously attending meetings.
I just see the Lord providing me with the time and energy to execute all my roles. I am that person who has crafted my life in such a way that I want to be doing something all the time and I manage it.
Sometimes I know the doctors will not be happy that at times I only sleep for three hours a night, but I am now used to this routine. At times I sleep during the day to cover for the lost time. I think we need to work for our country. We all need to reduce our sleeping time because this country needs us to work.
We have a good party in charge, a party with a history, a revolutionary party that is guiding us to achieve more. We have a very hard working President who is doing wonders for the country. We need to support our President through working hard.
Let us drink less, let us attend all meetings and workshops. Let us do more farming so that this country reclaims its status as the breadbasket of Africa. We need to increase the pace by doing our own part.
CM: You are having a second bite of the cherry when there is this Citizens’ Coalition for Change and the yellow fever, how do you rate your chances of winning considering that Mutasa South has both rural and urban voters?
MM: I will let the people speak. I think my brother Regai (Mr Tsunga) has had his time. He won last time, but I think this is my time to win. It seems the opposition party have abandoned whatever the ideology they had taken from their founding father, the late Mr Morgan Tsvangirai.
With the fragmentation of the opposition parties, this is the time for the people to ask whether this will take them anywhere.
The people should ask whether this type of confusion will bring better fortunes to them. I have been in ZANU PF since birth and have never moved to any party. I am consistent as a loyal party cadre and that should give me an edge.
People should not be misled by people who skip from one party to the other and one leader to the other as this will not take them anywhere. If they think a lot will come out from them when they vote them into office, I think they will be missing the point.
My track record speaks for itself. I am confident that we will stream roll past the opposition. We have a thorough programme to win the urban vote, but cannot put everything on the table as the opponent can take advantage of this.
If you look at my primary election results, I had almost double the urban vote compared to the rural vote. This alone shows that some work is being done. We are hoping to get more votes in urban areas because we have done our homework and we will continue doing so.
CM: We are going into the by-elections a few months from your party’s primary and provincial elections. Elections by nature bring tension even among family members, what are you doing to find each other and move together for the good of the party at large?
MM: As people from one family, we can argue or quarrel, but at the end of the day after our primary or provincial elections we become one unit. From the provincial elections, you can notice that the results I got were impressive because almost everybody who was eligible to vote voted for me.
So people are happy with what I am doing. The same applies to the primary elections, I had 4 212 and the other contestant had 645 votes.
People made their decision that I should lead them in garnering more votes for the party and President Mnangagwa. The electorate wants me to continue with the projects I have been carrying out since 2017, so there are no divisions in Mutasa South.
We have already congratulated each other for contesting in both the primary and provincial elections. We have already started moving as one unit and I do not see us encountering any problems.
CM: ZANU PF is geared to have five million votes for President Mnangagwa during next year’s harmonised elections, how will Mutasa South contribute towards achieving this target?
MM: As Mutasa South we are waiting to shine because we have already laid the foundation for the five million votes for our President. People know our President as a hard working man and we are his children and foot soldiers who will always deliver.
We have managed to put up health centres in every ward where there are no clinics. Doctors visit these centres at least once a month to treat our elderly and less privileged members of the society free of charge.
This is not a campaign gimmick because we have actually been doing this since 2017. We are constructing classroom blocks at schools. We have been supplying stationery to these schools.
We have been going around giving sanitary wear to girls and personal protective equipment to all schools in Mutasa South. Last year, we supplied sanitary wear to all Grade Seven female learners before they sat for their final examinations. We are always with the people, reminding them that the ruling party delivers on all its promises.
CM: What is your vision for Mutasa South as the country moves towards attaining Vision 2030 of an upper middle class economy?
MM: I think Mutasa South is one of the best constituencies to represent.
Apart from the gold that we have, the constituency has abundant water. This constituency has a canal that runs for kilometres, meandering around it. I have been talking to colleagues in the constituency and we are in agreement that we must now focus more on utilising these water reserves than the gold.
Gold mining needs more organisation in extracting it. We have big companies that will be coming on board to mine it and so we need to support them.
Yes, our people are mining, but they might be getting tit-bits until we organise them into groups and give them the right equipment to use. We want to get all youths in Mutasa South to have mining syndicates for them to be assisted to become real miners.
For now we want to make Mutasa South a greenbelt since it is only a tenth of the constituency which is being put to maximum use in terms of farming. At my small farm in the constituency, I managed to put one-and-a-half hectares of drip irrigation.
I have set up my own dam where water flows by gradient to the project. Right now I have four tonnes of onions that I am drying which I will be putting on the market between March and April.
I also have that same project in my rural home in Buhera.
This is all a sign that water, if put to good use, can do wonders. We have to be masters of our own destiny and should ensure that the country moves forward. There is no room for blame games, but to unite and speak with one voice.
