Zimbabwe Exile Forum’s Tino Mambeu says when opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangarai announced that he had cancer, the citizens of Zimbabwe were shattered.
Mambeu was speaking ahead of the burial of Tsvangarai in his home village of Buhera in the south-east of the country.
He says one would have expected to see the ballot papers with the image of Tsvangarai on them.
Mambeu says, “Traditionally you would have expected to see the ballot papers with the name Morgan Tsvangarai and Robert Mugabe – as it was as it has always been over the past decade now two decades. But now you know he announced that he had cancer, and people were shattered and felt that something was uneasy. But one thing we have to celebrate that this year in February, Nelson Chamisa turned 40, which provides him the opportunity to stand as a candidate for the opposition.
“The politics of Zimbabwe followed Morgan Tsvangarai to the hospital and people had lost hope.”
The body of Tsvangirai arrived in his home where thousands of his party supporters had already been making their way to his home village after a memorial service in Harare.
Kenya’s opposition leader Raila Odinga, Namibia opposition leader McHenry Venaani, and trade unionists from the region are among those attending Tsvangirai’s funeral.
