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Columbus Mabika Herald Reporter
MDC-T vice president Mr Obert Gutu on Saturday said the Political Actors Dialogue (POLAD) launched by President Mnangagwa in February this year, was making progress.

POLAD seeks to bring all parties that participated in last year’s harmonised elections for dialogue as part of wider efforts to cement national healing and nation-building.

Writing on his Twitter handle, Mr Gutu said only “ill-informed” people would not take the dialogue seriously

“We attended a POLAD meeting at State House with President ED on Friday, June 14, 2019. Misguided and ill-informed people think we went for the food. No! We can buy our own food. We raised extremely pertinent & relevant issues that we think ED should urgently attend to,” reads the tweet.

In a related issue, speaking on SABC news last week, former South African President Thabo Mbeki said President Mnangagwa was spot-on in convening POLAD. He advised other African nations to take a leaf from it.

He said POLAD was for unity of purpose to resolve political and socio-economic issues affecting Zimbabwe.

To date, 19 of 23 political parties that took part in the July 31 harmonised elections last year, have joined the dialogue.

MDC-Alliance leader Mr Nelson Chamisa refused to join the dialogue, setting conditions which were settled by the electoral process for him to get involved.

The Daniel Shumba-led United Democratic Alliance (UDA) initially joined the dialogue, but later withdrew for unknown reasons while Joice Mujuru (National People’s Party) and Noah Manyika (Build Zimbabwe) have snubbed the dialogue for selfish reasons.

In an unrelated issue, newspaper publisher and member of Presidential Advisory Council (PAC), Mr Trevor Ncube on Friday threw weight behind President Mnangagwa in his efforts to bring about economic renaissance in the country.

Writing on his Twitter handle, Mr Ncube said President Mnangagwa was the “man of the season”.

“Dear Zimbabwe long before I got into PAC l met ED at least twice, was convinced he was man for the season. The more l have interacted with the guy the more I have realised just how my intuition or gut feel was correct. He means to leave a positive legacy. Thank me later,” reads the tweet.