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(NEWZIMBABWE) Mugabe in election peace call as Nkomo buried

Mugabe in election peace call as Nkomo buried
Grief ... John Nkomo in Sept. last year, his coffin (centre) and his mother Gogo MaDube
21/01/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe renewed his calls for peaceful elections this year in a graveside speech on Monday as Vice President John Landa Nkomo was laid to rest the National Heroes Acre.

"We derive some solace from the fact that Cde Nkomo died on the day that parties to the Global Political Agreement succeeded in narrowing their differences on matters that threatened our national interests," Mugabe said in reference to last Thursday’s breakthrough during negotiations for a new constitution.

"Peace, unity and harmony should prevail if we are to move forward. Peace begins with you, peace begins with me, peace begins with us, that is what Nkomo used to say," Mugabe told thousands of mourners.

"Let's carry the exhortation of peace forward by holding elections peacefully. We want peaceful elections. The overriding common denominator is that we are Zimbabweans.”

Nkomo died last Thursday at St Anne’s Hospital after a long battle with cancer. He was 79.
Heavy rains that fell during the burial drenched mourners and twice disrupted Mugabe's address after triggering power outages.

“Power has gone, how can power go?” said Mugabe.

After the first power outage, the Zanu PF leader called for music to be played instead.

Mugabe said Nkomo, whom he described as a “survivor”, would be missed in both the government and his Zanu PF party.

“There are many why’s we cannot answer. Why? Why? Why?, yesterday it was the bomb in Lusaka, January 1977, that killed his friend Jason Moyo, but he survived. This is why I call him a survivor,” he said.

Mugabe’s MDC rivals Morgan Tsvangirai and Welshman Ncube attended the burial, along with foreign dignitaries who included South Africa’s Vice President Kgalema Motlanthe and Tanzanian Vice President Abeid Karume.

Zanu PF national chairman Simon Khaya Moyo is the odds-on favourite to step in as the next Vice President.

Labels: FUNERALS, JOHN LANDA NKOMO

posted by MrK @ 2:23 PM