ELECTION dates will be announced at the end of this month, President Emmerson Mnangagwa revealed in Mutare Saturday.

He was addressing supporters at Sakubva Stadium after officiating at the renaming of 3 Infantry Brigade Headquarters after liberation icon Herbert Chitepo.

Zimbabwe is due to hold crunch elections between July and August, the first without veteran leader Robert Mugabe who led the country since independence in 1980 until his ouster last year.

In his wide-ranging address, Mnangagwa the ruling Zanu PF party’s campaign will begin in earnest after proclamation of the election dates at the end of this month.

Referring to calls for accountability reading past outrages and atrocities Mnangagwa said; “Of course there many things we regret and wonder how and why they happened. But we cannot anymore live in the past.

“The past is gone; what we can only do is to learn the good that happened in the past to help us in future and avoid the bad things that happened in the past; never again to allow them in the future.

”We must build our country on the basis of unity, the basis of love, the basis of respect … lets love one another; this is our country, we were given it by God without asking.”

Other Rally highlights:

• Consolidation of Marange diamond mining not working, to be reviewed
• Government to put more than 350,000 hectares under irrigation
• Mutare to become an economic processing zone
• More than $15bln in foreign direct investment (FDI) commitments since November’s change of government
• General Electric to develop $5bln Batoka Gorge hydroelectric power project
• Zimbabwe to become a middle-income country within 12 years.