RENOWNED Catholic priest Fidelis Mukonori has challenged Zimbabweans to hold their leaders accountable and stop being crybabies. Speaking in an interview with Alpha Media Holdings chairman Trevor Ncube on the platform In Conversation with Trevor, Mukonori said citizens should resist exploitation by political leaders.

“Zimbabwe has got everything we need to have a good and successful country but where we are right now we are making a mess of it. We as Zimbabweans should not allow our leaders to play with our lives because they still go home and sleep. Do they care that there are people who are failing to send their children to school and others who are going to bed hungry? Do they care? If they did, this fickleness would not take place,” said Mukonori.

Zimbabwe held its harmonised elections on August 23 and 24 whose results have been dismissed by opposition Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) leader Nelson Chamisa as a “gigantic fraud”.

According to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, President Emmerson Mnangagwa of Zanu PF garnered 52,6% of the presidential vote against Chamisa’s 44%.

Mukonori added that CCC should not continue singing the same tune claiming that elections were stolen.

“There is no reason for Zanu PF to steal votes because if they do a good job they will be voted into power. There is no need for CCC to continue to say it has been stolen, where were they when things were being stolen? If there is an absence of them where things are expected to be stolen that issue should be put right.

“We cannot continue as an educated nation in this case that we continue to say ‘this has been stolen’,” he said.

Mukonori, who took part in the negotiations that led to the exit of late former President Robert Mugabe in 2017, could not outline how he managed to persuade Mugabe to resign ahead of a planned impeachment move.

“I was requested by the commander-inchief and by the commanders themselves to be the bridge between them. That's what I did. This was a statecraft issue and these were the wheels of the State and I was just a cog in the wheel. The State has the right to disclose it.

Mukonori also took part in negotiations leading to the formation of the Government of National Unity between Zanu PF and the two MDC formations in 2009.