Published by the government of Zimbabwe
5 January 2009
Harare — THE participation of the Zimbabwe National Army's Presidential Guard at the Miss Tourism Zimbabwe pageant last week was aimed at showcasing the winner as a truly Zimba-bwean beauty queen, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority chief executive Mr Karikoga Kaseke has said.
The ZTA boss said the move was also meant to give the event a national outlook as well as "blessing" the queen's new ambassadorial role.
"This has never happened anywhere in world, even at Miss World, that we see soldiers, more so the Presidential Guard unit, blessing a pageant.
"Their inclusion has also helped us to prove our detractors wrong because now they can see that the Government really supports the national pageant," he said.
He said ZTA would continue coming up with new strategies in future contests to give them a national outlook.
"As ZTA, we shall continue to be innovative in future pageants because we have never failed before and this year's edition was the best contest since we took over a few years ago.
"Another thing that I liked most is that people also endorsed the queen because there were no grumbles over who deserved to win at this year's edition.
"What we chose was our best queen and we hope she will do well in projecting our identity at the Miss World," he said.
Vanessa Williams of Harare emerged the winner.
Mr Kaseke, however, said there was need to redefine the criteria of beauty because present standards favoured European models.
"At the moment, we are pushing the Miss World Trust to redefine what they call beauty because it does not favour African conceptions and perceptions of beauty," said.
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