MDC-T president Douglas Mwonzora says his party will shock its detractors in the 2023 elections despite failing to win a single parliamentary or council seat in the 26 March 2022 by-elections.

Speaking on Thursday during This Morning on Asakhe, a programme hosted by CITE on Twitter Space, Mwonzora said the party’s dismal performance in the by-elections is now water under the bridge. He said:

For us, the by-elections are a bygone; we did not do well but we are not perturbed by that.

Mwonzora said he draws inspiration from the likes of Nelson Mandela, Abraham Lincoln in the United States, Robert Mugabe and President Emmerson Mnangagwa who at one point failed in their lives but still picked themselves up and continued with their missions. He said:

We are rebuilding our organisation and come 2023 we will be an extremely potent force and we are brewing a shocker for the nation. There is absolutely no question about it.

I want to quote Garry Kasparov, the Russian, Soviet Union champion, who says that you should not glory in your past victory.

You think that what was there on the 26th of March 2022 is the same as on the 11th of September 2022, things have changed.

Society has changed, things are moving and so on. So we should not remain fossilised in the past. We have failed before we have risen in the MDC.

He said the MDC had a history of falling and rising in elections since contesting for the first time in 2000. He said:

In 2000 it scored very well, almost getting a majority in Parliament. In 2005 it went down, lost its parliamentary advantage, and I think lost about 11 seats.

Then in 2008, the MDC went up, winning the presidency, winning Parliament, and all the Councils. In 2013 we went down.

In 2018 when we were together we did very well and our presidential candidate, Nelson Chamisa did very well in the presidential election.

Of course, he thinks that it is only his. His achievement is not on the team, but that is his opinion but did objectively well in 2018.

In the by-election, we did badly. We are now on the upward swing. This is the trend of the MDC.

Those historians out there who care to study the MDC must find that there is a trend.

So we are happy that we are on our way up and we will provide a shot come 2023.
More: CITE