HARARE – Opposition FreeZim leader and business tycoon, Joseph Busha has fired shots at President Emmerson Mnangagwa and CCC leader Nelson Chamisa for perceived lack of legitimacy as he announced his bid to run for president in national elections next year.
Speaking at a Zimbabwe National Editors Forum (ZINEF) organised interface with journalists in Harare Friday, the 58-year-old politician, pledged to restore economic prosperity if elected president, adding, he is going to whittle down the country’s cabinet to a lean 12 ministers.
He declared his bid to become “Zimbabwe’s second democratically elected president” while disdainfully dismissing Mnangagwa and Chamisa as coup beneficiaries.
“Advocate Chamisa was not democratically elected to be president of MDC; right now he is in tripple C, it was Thokozani Khupe (who should have been party president).
“He manipulated the process to become the MDC leader.
“President Mnangagwa was not democratically elected to be president of Zimbabwe because he used the constitution and manipulated the parliamentary process to recall or to get Mugabe resign because the late President Mugabe asked for, to say let’s go to congress and you can beat me and they refused because some of them were cowards.
“So the process to get there was not democratic, then it was validated by elections in 2018,” he said.
Busha did not spare fellow opposition politicians he contested in the 2018 presidential elections and now coalesce under Mnangagwa’s scorned POLAD.
He dismissed them as a bunch of opposition leaders who were merely concerned about lining their pockets through Mnangagwa’s freebies.
The opposition politician said Zimbabwe deserved leaders who understood the country’s rich natural endowment and have the wherewithal to leverage spur prosperity and give the troubled country competitive edge over competing world economies.
Busha blasted Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube for “cramming” the textbook on economics while remaining clueless on how to administer his knowledge to rescue a faltering economy.
He pledged to provide the much-needed pragmatic leadership the country was yearning for.
“We are not looking for academics anymore, we are looking for people who understand the structure of the economy, we are looking for people who have walked the path, people who understand the people right at the bottom; not people who best are going to read the textbook they never wrote or their grandfathers never wrote and managed to cram it.
“We are looking for practical people.
“I believe in this country right now until somebody comes up and I want everybody to raise their hands, I am the most qualified Presidential candidate for Zimbabwe in 2023,” he said.
Busha was among the 23 presidential candidates in 2018 the majority of whom failed to garner meaningful votes.
He said he has found the formula to turn his election fortunes around.