Maravi

(NEWZIMBABWE) Coalition: Ncube points Tsvangirai to Mutambara
17/07/2013 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter

MDC leader Welshman Ncube says his MDC-T rival Morgan Tsvangirai is better off forming a coalition with Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara because he never recognised his leadership while in government.

Ncube insists that he read about Tsvangirai’s moves to form a grand coalition in the newspapers, and had never been directly engaged by the MDC-T leader on the matter.

Political analysts tip President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party to romp to victory on July 31 unless the MDC parties can form a united front, which now appears unlikely after both parties finalised their candidate lists.

In an interview published on Tuesday, Ncube cited several reasons why such a coalition would not work – not least what he sees as Tsvangirai’s attempts to undermine him in the coalition government formed in 2008.

“Look at how they treated us after our congress [in 2009]. Morgan and his team were saying the leader of the MDC is Arthur Mutambara; there is no other, they will work with him until the courts have determined. And we are saying the courts still have not determined,” Ncube is quoted as saying in an interview with the Daily News.
“So if Mutambara is the leader of the MDC, go and form a coalition with him, I’m sure he’s willing to do that.”

Ncube accused Tsvangirai of bribing some of his party’s 10 MPs and six Senators in a bid to weaken the MDC. Any attempts at a coalition would have to address that and other problems including the use of violence, which he says was a factor in the 2005 split in the party.

“Tsvangirai has been in coalition against us for the last two-and-half years,” Ncube said of the MDC-T leader and President Robert Mugabe’s refusal to welcome him at their Monday principals’ meetings which Mutambara attended.

He added: “We disagree on just about everything [with Tsvangirai]. We, as a party, say there is no situation which can justify the use of violence as an instrument of political organisation. We believe in collective democratic decision-making processes. I, as the president, cannot overrule the collective decisions either of the Standing Committee, the National Executive or the National Council. And there are so many things.

“The only thing which is in common is that once-upon-a-time we were in the same party. We drifted apart and eventually split because we realised that whereas we will say the same things, we will practice different things.

“You cannot have a coalition of opportunists. If you are going to have a coalition, it must be a coalition of people with some shared values, some shared principles and we simply don’t.

“The things which divide us are so numerous. They are so deep-seated that they split the party in 2005. They are so deep-seated that in the last four years the MDC T, instead of focusing on re-building tasks between us they focused on recruiting our MPs, they bribed them. Look at where MaKhumalo (Nomalanga Khumalo) is; look at where the (Abednico) Bhebhes are; that was their focus.”

Comparing the MDC to Humpty Dumpty, the egg character in the English nursery rhyme, Ncube said it may be time for people to accept that the reunification of the MDC is no longer possible.

“Once a Humpty Dumpty has broken, its pieces are scattered everywhere, you can’t re-build. And people should stop dreaming that the Humpty Dumpty, which was the united MDC, can be reconstructed in whatever form. Some people will not like this, but it is the truth.”

Jameson Timba, a senior MDC-T figure and Minister of State in the Prime Minister’s Office, told New Zimbabwe.com that the door was still open to Ncube to form some kind of coalition.

The MDC-T, Timba said, had made a written proposal to Ncube – details of which he would not discuss – about a possible coalition, and was still waiting for a response.

Timba accepts that following the Nomination Court sitting, it may now be impossible to reach an agreement over the distribution of House of Assembly, Senate and local government seats to the coalition partners.

But the MDC-T still says a deal which would see Ncube stand down as a Presidential candidate and urge his supporters to rally behind Tsvangirai could still be possible.

Labels: JAMESON TIMBA

posted by MrK @ 3:55 PM