Chamisa Not A Liar, People Should Distinguish Lies From Political Banter, Hyperbole: Mwonzora
MDC-T secretary-general Douglas Mwonzora has defended the party’s presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa saying that he was not a liar. Mwonzora said that what people called lies what is, in fact, political banter and hyperbole. This comes after critics, as well as general people, have accused Chamisa of being a serial liar. This resulted in a mock competition on social media called the #ChamisaChallenge. Speaking to The Standard, Mwonzora said,
…Let me go to the oratory skills of president Chamisa. He is a man of talent and there is no question about it. You put him in front of the people, his speaking abilities are good and he is not disrespectful of the crowd and his opponent. Now sometimes people confuse what you are calling lies and some political banter and political exaggerations that happen when you do campaigns which are meant to express a point. An example is sometimes given to its extremes and I think this is where people have been missing it. But let’s go to some of the key messages such as the promise to deliver spaghetti roads: I know that for Zimbabweans to imagine a transport system as elaborate as the system in London is something that is unimaginable. This is because Zimbabweans have set themselves very low standards and when you have someone who gives them a vision with such possibilities, people then think that it is not sensible. Yet it is actually sensible and doable; it is something that other nations have achieved and it is something that some people have actually done. On the issue of so-called spaghetti road networks, South Africans have actually built them and they are there for everyone to see just across the Limpopo. That is the description of the road system that Chamisa has for a future Zimbabwe. We are not thinking of Zimbabwe tomorrow, we are not thinking of Zimbabwe next year, we are thinking of Zimbabwe in the long-term.
More: The Standard