MDC Alliance member writes to Queen Elizabeth II, pleads for removal of sanctions

MDC Alliance member, Multi-Racial Christian Democrats (MCD) party leader Mathius Guchutu and his special adviser Sebastian Guchutu wrote a letter to Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II pleading with her to consider lifting sanctions against Zimbabwe.

The letter was delivered to the British Embassy in Harare on Tuesday. In his letter, MCD leader Guchutu said EU imposed sanctions were not having the intended effect of removing the Zanu-PF Government from power. Wrote Guchutu:

Impoverishing people doesn’t remove a government from power, it rather entrenches it. The sanctions have unintended consequences. They have ravaged industry and left government as the only entity with allocative power and it comes across as the saviour. The situation on the ground is that instead of weakening Zanu PF, they have strengthened it. This is the context in which patronage thrives. The Zanu PF government has perfected the art of giving people enough so that they do not starve, but not too much so that they may not become independent and dream of challenging its hegemony. The present government has grossly mismanaged the economy, but a lot of economic hardships were triggered by the sanctions.

However, Transform Zimbabwe leader and MDC Alliance spokesperson Jacob Ngarivhume said that sanctions are not to blame for the economic meltdown as suggested by the MCD.

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