Oct. 29 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The President of Zimbabwe, Emmerson Mnangagwa, has won the backing of his party, the Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF), to be the presidential candidate in the country’s next general election, which will take place in July of 2023.
The country’s ruling party has unanimously elected Mnangagwa as party president and first secretary, as well as the sole presidential candidate, at the National People’s Congress held every five years.
In this way, the 80-year-old Zimbabwean president consolidates his power in the party he has led since succeeding Robert Mugabe five years ago.
The president has assured in an intervention after his election that this decision allows him to continue “serving the party and the country” in his quest to achieve an “empowered and prosperous middle and high-income society” by 2030, according to the newspaper ‘Herald’.
“Let me express my deep gratitude to all of you, my fellow comrades in ZANU-PF who are gathered here (…I humbly accept. The election further emboldens and rekindles my commitment to servant leadership and selfless sacrifice for the party and the country as a whole,” he added.
So far, the Zimbabwean president has presided over a program of economic reforms during his first term, which has allowed the country’s economy to grow 7.2 percent in 2021.
However, the country is run amok by inflation, as it has an annual price growth rate of 269 percent, leading the African state to have the highest inflation in the world, the Bloomberg agency has reported.
The president’s plans for his second term are to carry out “cross-cutting reforms” to bring “stability and predictability” to the economy. “The policies of the ZANU-PF-led government are lifting many out of poverty and into prosperity,” he argued in his speech.
Mnangagwa came to power in November 2017 after the resignation of President Mugabe after 30 years in power and harassed by the Armed Forces and by the countries of the region due to the political crisis unleashed after the removal of Mnangagwa himself as vice president.
