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The Freedom of Rights Under Sovereign (FORUS) Party is making its intentions to occupy the State House come 2023 clearer as evidenced by its moves to build political capital through forging diplomatic and economic ties.
As she landed in Zimbabwe three weeks ago from a hiatus in the United Kingdom, Manyara Irene Muyenziwa, the FORUS President defied jet lag from the long journey from the West and addressed the Zimbabwe Institute of Strategic Thinking (ZIST) conference in Harare where she immediately revealed that to extricate the country from current challenges, the new focus must be a paradigm for thinking about a future in which environmental, social, and economic considerations are balanced in the pursuit of development and improved quality of life.
The meeting was attended by renowned banker and economist, Nigel Chanakira; Ben Manyenyeni, the former Mayor of Harare; Rev Dr. Kenneth Mtata, the Secretary-General of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches; and Janet Zhou, the Executive Director of the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development (ZIMCODD) among other luminaries.
During the ZIST meeting, the FORUS President made it clear that Zimbabwe should be an active participant in the global village by forging economic, political, and social ties with all countries across all continents including America, Asia, and Europe. It emerged that Zimbabwe is a gateway to regional major markets like the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA), the Southern African Development Community (SADC, and more recently, the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), hence the need to forge diplomatic and economic ties.
On the local scene, the FORUS president and her team have been meeting politicians from across the political divide, captains of industry and commerce, religious leaders, representatives of civil society organisations, and students and academics among others.
“As FORUS, we have an open-door policy where everyone, including our political competitors, is free to come to the table and share ideas with us. That is the reason why I immediately addressed the ZIST conference that was attended by experts from diverse backgrounds upon my return to the country. I have intentions to meet President Emmerson Munangagwa, Mr. Nelson Chamisa of the MDC Alliance, and even representatives of other local political parties.
“The idea is to share information about how best we can save our country from a plethora of challenges that it is mired in. We are meeting the diplomatic community and captains of industry because FORUS Party is a platform for change, a democratic train for all,” Muyenziwa said.
True to this, the FORUS Party leadership has addressed high-level meetings in Bulawayo, Johannesburg, Cape Town, and the United Kingdom as it drums up support locally and in the diaspora, while sharing its manifesto – a launchpad for Zimbabwe to make a rebound economically, politically, and socially.