In January 2015, I personally gave Didymus Mutasa, the Zimbabwe First National Convergence concept which clearly had the names People First and Zimbabwe First. These names formed the foundation of national convergence concept and were the fundamental premise of the initiative.
Maxwell Zeb Shumba
Within the concept documents, the names People First and Zimbabwe First were clearly engrossed as the term which formed the rallying principle and the defined unity of purpose. Mutasa was the point person representing the members who had been expelled from Zanu PF. The team claimed to be led by the former Vice-President Joice Mujuru. Soon after their court cases against Zanu PF collapsed, Mutasa on behalf of his team proposed that we form a new entity called Zanu People First.
According to Mutasa’s proposal the name would use Zanu from their party and People First from our national convergence concept. However, the Zimbabwe First National Convergence members turned down the proposal insisting that the national convergence platform did not want to use any name from existing parties. Despite our turning down the proposal and well-documented protests in the media, Mujuru and her team played deaf and moved forward with the use of the name People First without our permission. We know why Mujuru’s team went ahead naming their party People First. It was very evident that the Zimbabwe First and People First concept was a powerful ideology to sell to the masses and in typical selfish Zanu PF fashion they wanted the name and concept for themselves. As the Zimbabwe First brand name continues to gain traction with Zimbabweans Mujuru wants to take advantage of the confusion caused by the similarity of names to swallow our party.
There is ample time for Mujuru to change her party name and drop ours if she wants to avoid protracted legal battles.
The names People First, Zimbabwe People First are ZimFirst Party’s intellectual property as of December 15, 2014 when the Zimbabwe First national convergence initiative was launched. Zimbabwe First also known as ZimFirst or the People First Party are the intellectual owners of the names and there is no legal basis of anyone to disregard this fact.
It is our hope that Mujuru will show that she has changed from her well-documented Zanu PF behaviour of grabbing other people’s property. People are asking us the question: What is in a name? The answer is simple: A name is a brand which defines the worthiness of a product and determines its saleability. It is our considered view that Mujuru is using her situation of being expelled from Zanu PF unfairly to gain sympathy and manipulate others.
She is using her name recognition to illegally grab our name without due regard. Our party is not happy and will not let her use it on the ballot.
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We want to explicitly communicate this to her she cannot be run us roughshod and get away with it. She cannot bully us simply because she was once a powerful politician.
We worked very hard to develop the “First” brand while she was quiet in Dotito and she cannot be allowed to grab the property she did not work for the same way she did when she forcibly grabbed other people’s farms. If she thinks we will let go, then she is mistaken and she will get a rude awakening. 4
If she is genuinely focused on changing the fortunes of Zimbabwe she needs to change herself. Charity begins at home. She needs to drop the name “First” from her political name. Zimbabwe First was founded on April 10, 2015 and launched at a ceremony in Murewa.
In all the cited events the use of Country First, People First, Zimbabwe First was very evident and our constitution lodged with Zimbabwe Electoral Commission also bears testimony to the use of these names. We are also concerned that she continues to steal our intellectual property and now have appropriated our technical terms of building the party which are referred to as “Builders building solid foundation brick by brick”.
For how long will she continue to take other people’s property without due regard. She has to be stopped and we will stop her. We will fight her to the hilt until she acknowledges her wrong deed. You cannot separate People First and Zimbabwe People First from Zimbabwe First) (ZimFirst). It is one and the same.
●Maxwell Shumba is Zimbabwe First President
