MDC-T eyes electoral pact to unseat Mugabe
08/12/2012 00:00:00
by Mduduzi Mathuthu
MORGAN Tsvangirai is not the President of Zimbabwe because talks aimed at reunifying the two MDC factions collapsed in 2008 – just months before general elections, according to his party’s secretary general Tendai Biti.
Biti said the decision by the MDC-T – which won a larger share of the electoral vote compared to the splinter party now led by the party’s founding secretary general Welshman Ncube – to go it alone had aided President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party.
The talks collapsed over the distribution of parliamentary seats between the two parties.
Biti, who had advocated for the reunification of the parties, says he became so despondent after the failed talks that he would not want to be involved again.
Yet the Finance Minister, speaking in Manchester, England, on Friday insisted that he had no doubt Mugabe would lose against a coalition of determined Zimbabwean opposition leaders.
“For me personally, I did my best to see the reunification of the two MDCs and I was really shattered when our talks broke down on February 2, 2008,” Biti told New Zimbabwe.com.
“I think it was a disaster, and to prove that those of us who were preaching unity were vindicated, the presidential run-off election was caused by the 9 percent that we theoretically lost to Simba Makoni.”
Makoni, a former Zanu PF official and leader of the then newly-formed Mavambo-Kusile party, stood as an independent with the support of Ncube’s MDC.
Tsvangirai polled 1,195,562 votes (47.9 percent) to Mugabe’s 1,079,730 votes (43.2 percent) which fell shy of the 50.01 percent which would have secured him the presidency.
Makoni’s 8.3 percentage share of the vote meant there was no outright winner, triggering a run-off election between Mugabe and Tsvangirai in June 2008 which the MDC-T leader opted out of, citing the widespread intimidation and killing of his supporters.
Mugabe later agreed to share power with Tsvangirai and Ncube's MDC, then led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, after regional countries refused to recognise his lopsided run-off victory.
Biti admits the two MDC parties are unlikely to reunite, but he still hopes an electoral pact can still be possible to unseat the 88-year-old Mugabe who has been in power since 1980.
He said: “I pray that there will be maturity at the relevant time not for the reunification of the parties, I think that will never happen, but for some kind of electoral pact.
“I hope the leaders of all the democracy loving political parties in Zimbabwe – Simba Makoni, Dumiso Dabengwa, Welshman Ncube, Morgan Tsvangirai and others – will come together for some kind of pact.
“One thing I can assure you is that I hope not to be involved in the negotiations because the way they collapse is very painful, and I still have a hangover from the collapse of the 2008 talks.”
Labels: MDC, MDC FACTIONS, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, TENDAI BITI
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Mutambara, Ncube feud: Parliament speaks out
Thursday, 22 November 2012 00:00
Herald Reporter
PARLIAMENT will only intervene in the feud between Professors Arthur Mutambara and Welshman Ncube over the status of MDC Parliamentarians if the factions officially communicate their positions. Speaker of the House of Assembly Mr Lovemore Moyo yesterday said Parliament would not rush to take a position before the interested parties make the request.
He said he was yet to receive communication from the rival factions.
“They haven’t communicated their positions to me, so I wouldn’t want to be seen to be instigating them to take any actions,” he said. “I will only be able to comment and explain the procedure when I am confronted with a request. “If a party says it is withdrawing its support for so and so, then I will be able to explain the procedures.”
The feud between the two escalated on Monday when Prof Mutambara wrote Mr Moyo and Senate President Edna Madzongwe letters saying Prof Ncube had no authority to expel MDC legislators.
This followed the announcement by the Prof Ncube-led MDC faction on Monday that it had fired eight lawmakers and 49 councillors for indiscipline and crossing the floor to MDC-T.
Prof Mutambara advised Parliament’s presiding officers to disregard attempts by Prof Ncube’s faction to have the legislators fired.
The two are embroiled in a wrangle for leadership of MDC and the matter is still before the Supreme Court.
It is understood that some of the axed councillors openly declared that they had defected to MDC-T.
Section 41 of the Constitution is the one that is used to axe legislators from Parliament if they defect to another party.
The secretary-general of a political party is required to write to the Speaker of the House of Assembly and the Senate President informing them that the legislators no longer represent their party’s interest.
However, the Supreme Court is yet to make a determination of whom between Prof Mutambara and Prof Ncube is the legitimate leader.
Prof Ncube also expelled 49 councillors, but the Urban Councils Act does not provide for the sacking of councillors if they are fired from their parties.
MDC-T last year fired the entire Chitungwiza council and the mayor on allegations of corruption, but they have remained councillors.
It is the same case with the 12 councillors the party recently expelled over corruption allegations, they have remained at work because the law does not provide for their expulsion.
Labels: ARTHUR MUTAMBARA, MDC, MDC FACTIONS, MDC-M, WELSHMAN NCUBE
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Madhuku a Mugabe fanatic: MDC-T
21/11/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party launched an astonishing attack on NCA chairman Lovemore Madhuku on Wednesday, accusing the constitutional law expert of being a fanatic of President Robert Mugabe. The MDC-T reacted angrily to Madhuku’s criticism of its leader over the stalled process to write a new constitution for Zimbabwe.
Madhuku, speaking at a conference for church leaders in Harare last Friday, had suggested Tsvangirai’s handling of the impasse was “childish”. He said the two MDC factions were being outflanked by Mugabe who had approached the issue with the “highest level of sophistication and intelligence”.
But in a statement, the MDC said Madhuku – whose NCA is opposed to a political party-led constitution – was “simply confused”.
“It is one thing for Professor Madhuku to constructively criticise our president and it is another thing to hurl empty insults at president Tsvangirai as if someone is on a Zanu PF payroll,” the party said.
“It is regrettable that Professor Madhuku does not seem to appreciate this impeccable reasoning on the part of president Tsvangirai. It is even more astounding that Madhuku does not appreciate the very positive achievements in this constitution.
“Maybe this is because he rejected this document before it was even written. This, in our view is a serious misinterpretation of the processes guiding the constitution making. The professor’s judgment is seriously impaired by his fanaticism on Mugabe and is indeed misguided.”
The three main parties in Zimbabwe’s coalition government are split on how to proceed with the new constitution following the release of the first draft in July.
A conference held in Harare last month recommended amendments to the draft, but the parties could not agree on the changes, with the MDC factions saying the draft should go as is to Parliament while Zanu PF has taken the position that the principals – leaders of the coalition parties – should sit and make amendments.
The Global Political Agreement, the pact underpinning the coalition, says all three parties must agree on the draft before taking it forward to a referendum, but such an agreement looks unlikely.
Madhuku said last Friday: “There is likely going to be a stalemate and, as usual, the MDC card is to blame Mugabe. A time will come when Mugabe says, ‘They have blamed me enough and this is how things are supposed to be done: going to elections under the current constitution!’
“Look at them (Zanu PF), what they have done. After the release of the draft constitution in July, the MDC said the document must be taken to the Second All-Stakeholders’ Conference and Zanu PF came up with its amendments.
"During the stakeholders’ conference, the MDC told its delegates that on every sentence they should say, ‘as it is’. On the other hand, Zanu PF pushed its amendments through. They will say the delegates have said it, who are you not to accept what the delegates have said? That is the highest level of sophistication and intelligence on the part of Zanu PF whether we like it or not."
But the MDC-T says the correct course is to keep the constitution a parliamentary process “in which principals must play a minimalist and largely facilitative role” – although this stance has so far stalled the project.
“In terms of the Global Political Agreement, COPAC must submit its draft and report to parliament. Only then can the executive through the Minister for Constitutional and Parliamentary Affairs get seized of the document in preparation for the referendum. Any changes to this process are tantamount to rewriting the Global Political Agreement,” the party said.
Labels: LOVEMORE MADHUKU, MDC, MDC FACTIONS
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Mutambara bids to block MP expulsions
20/11/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
DEPUTY Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara has approached the Senate President and the Speaker of Parliament in a bid to block the expulsion of lawmakers sacked by the MDC party for insubordination on Monday.
The Welshman Ncube led party expelled three Members Parliament and two Senators accusing of them of undermining the party leadership by allegedly working with the MDC formation led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai.
Those sacked included Tsholotsho South MP Maxwell Dube, Thandeko Zinti Mkandla of Gwanda North, Umzingwane’s Nomalanga Khumalo and two senators Dalumuzi Khumalo of Lupane and Kembo Dube of Umzingwane.
MDC secretary general Priscilla Misihairabwi Mushonga told the legislators: “You have refused to work for the party and in fact rejected the authority of the party’s national leadership and the National Council and generally disassociated yourself from the party.
"By your conduct, you automatically expelled yourself from the party with effect from March 2011 when you refused to accept authority."
The party also approached the Clerk of Parliament Austin Zvoma, seeking to have the legislators expelled.
But Mutambara, who is fighting his removal as party leader at the Supreme Court, claimed in letters to the Speaker of Parliament and the President of the Senate that the sacking of the legislators from the party was “null and void”.
“These legislators were elected under my leadership as the President of the MDC. Both the issue of whether Welshman Ncube was duly elected President of the MDC in January 2011, and the matter of the legitimacy of the corresponding MDC Congress are before the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe,” said Mutambara.
“Consequently, all these issues are sub judice. Hence, the entire leadership led by Welshman Ncube, has no locus standi to expel members from the MDC. Hence they cannot purport to terminate the Parliamentary membership of any sitting member of the MDC.
“Once the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe has ruled in its favour in both the two pending Supreme Court cases, then the leadership led by Welshman Ncube can take action against the MPs.”
Khumalo, who was also the Deputy Speaker of Parliament shrugged off the purported dismissal saying: “They are embarrassing themselves because they are claiming to have fired people who have already defected. I told them from the word go that I was not part of them, but that I belong to Mutambara’s faction.
“I am also informed that about 12 councillors in Umzingwane defected to the MDC-T so they cannot say they have fired people who have already defected.”
Dube added: “For them to say they have expelled us is the same as saying Zanu PF has expelled me. I belong to the MDC on whose ticket I went to Parliament.
“The MDC led by Mutambara is the one I belong to. For them to say I defected to the MDC-T, that is their story that they believe.”
Mutambara added that Ncube could not continue to claim legitimacy in government having sacked most of his elected representatives.
Said the deputy premier: “Even in this scenario, how do you fire more than 70 percent of your elected representatives, and remain legitimate as a Party Leader and as a Government Minister?
“This has never happened in the history of constitutional democracies.”
Labels: ARTHUR MUTAMBARA, MDC, MDC FACTIONS
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MDC-T fights over candidate imposition
20/10/2012 00:00:00
by Chengetai Zvauya I Daily News
THE race for Parliament and council seats ahead of the forthcoming general elections has ripped Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T apart, with factions fighting for supremacy.
Factionalism in the party has resurfaced as jockeying intensifies with different camps, fighting for supremacy. There is a camp which is fielding young cadres and academics, which enjoys the support of younger leaders like Tendai Biti while Tsvangirai is using his former trade union colleagues to continue with his hold on the party, sources close to the ground say.
Women and youth assembly members are being roped in the factionalism.
According to sources, the factions have been fighting for turf for months, as evidenced by the splits and violent clashes that characterised provinces such as Bulawayo, Masvingo, Manicaland and Mashonaland East.
The party is yet to firmly deal with the issue of internal violence driven by factionalism despite public promises to do so.
Sources said the infighting had intensified across provinces in recent weeks due to the race to get the party ticket for next year’s elections.
A new front in the war has been opened as well.
A directive from the MDC-T’s national executive that incumbent councillors and MPs will not be contested in primary elections to choose party candidates ahead of the watershed polls that could be held in June 2013 has raffled feathers in the young party.
Aspiring candidates are uncomfortable with the directive barring them from contesting sitting MPs and councillors as they feel it protects failed and corrupt office bearers.
They feel Tsvangirai’s band of top leaders is abusing high office to protect themselves from internal democracy.
MDC-T deputy spokesperson Joel Gabbuza confirmed that sitting MPs will walk to the general elections unopposed.
“In the constituencies where we have incumbent MPs and councillors, we will delay the process of primary elections because we already have persons elected by the electorate,” said Gabbuza.
“We do not want to disrupt the work they have done. So we are going to be starting in the constituencies where we do not have representatives. In those constituencies people can start running around canvassing for support,” said Gabuzza.
The MDC-T’s decision not to hold primary elections has left the party that was formed in 1999 deeply divided with some people who have been in the trenches for the past 13 years feeling that this is a form of candidate imposition — a phenomenon copied from Zanu PF.
Zanu PF, however, appears to be changing tact and has announced that apart from President Robert Mugabe, every other official will have to fight it out.
The move by the MDC-T not to hold primary elections in more than 90 constituencies has been picked by the party rivals as undemocratic but Gabbuza said the party will not deviate from its “democratic” practices.
“We are not going to impose candidates on our supporters. What is happening at the moment is that our election directorate is working on the procedure to elect candidates. They are fine-tuning the resolution of our congress on elections,” said Gabbuza.
Aspiring candidates say the majority of sitting MDC-T MPs and councillors have failed to deliver and have joined the gravy train and therefore should make way for fresh blood.
Even though Tsvangirai’s party has taken steps to bring sanity to towns it leads by expelling councillors deemed to be corrupt, many feel the action is incomplete and should net all councillors who are enjoying a rags-to-riches lifestyle and targeting the small fish.
Gabbuza, who also has been an MP for more than a decade now, defended the decision by his colleagues not to step down and allow others to take over.
“There is no provision in our party constitution which says a member should have served a certain number of years for him to step down from being a councillor or MP,” said Gabbuza.
Labels: MDC FACTIONS
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COMMENT - This makes no sense. ZANU-PF is served very well by Welshman Ncube splitting the MDC vote. It enabled the presidential election to turn to a run-off back in 2008. My guess is that he is trying to gain some street cred, after his BBC Hrdtalk interview.
'Soldiers' storm Ncube rally in Mutoko
21/09/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
DOZENS of MDC supporters on Friday came under attack from a group of men in army uniform minutes after party leader Welshman Ncube addressed a rally in Mutoko, Mashonaland East, officials said.
Ncube and senior party leaders had just left the venue of the rally in Mutoko centre when dispersing supporters came under attack, according to a spokesman for the party, Kuraone Chihwayi. He said several supporters were injured in the raid while six party activists had gone into hiding.
The party says the assailants were disgorged by two army trucks. Mutoko is headquarters to the 2.1 Infantry Battalion.
Chihwayi said: “I can confirm that violence erupted at the rally venue soon after the president had left when people who were in army trucks and dressed in army uniform started beating up our supporters.
“As I speak, our provincial chairperson, Shupikai Mandaza, and five other party leaders in the province are in hiding. Mandaza is actually a liaison officer for JOMIC [Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee – a body tasked with monitoring implementation of a power sharing agreement].”
Chihwayi said despite President Robert Mugabe’s public calls for a cessation of violence, Friday’s attack was evidence that “we are far from building bridges”.
“The MDC will hold Mugabe accountable for the missing party supporters. We are going to press on until Mugabe is gone,” he added.
Ncube, who returned to Harare in the evening, confirmed receiving a report on the violence.
“I am informed that our party supporters were beaten up soon after my team had left. During the rally, these army trucks were moving up and down. After the rally, the trucks dropped off the soldiers who then started assaulting our supporters leaving one young man seriously injured,” Ncube said by telephone.
“We are still in the process of verifying what exactly went on and we have notified the police about the incident.”
New Zimbabwe.com was unable to verify if the assailants were soldiers. Zimbabwe National Army spokesman Col Alfios Makotore was not answering his mobile phone late Friday.
Ncube added: “This incident exposes the sad reality that the country has not moved on from the 2008 election violence. It clearly demonstrates that some areas are still no go areas for other political parties.”
Both MDC factions accuse coalition partner Zanu PF of employing soldiers for partisan political programmes.
The military was fingered as a key driver of the violence that swept Zimbabwe in 2008 ahead of a presidential run-off election which was boycotted by MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai. President Mugabe won the discredited vote by a landslide but regional countries pressured him into sharing power with his rivals.
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COMMENTS
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RudeChikala
THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO EVIDENCE WHAT SO EVER THAT THESE PEOPLE WERE ATTACKED BY ZNA SOLDIERS.
IT IS NOT ONLY ZANU-PF WHICH WOULD LOVE TO KICK NCUBE & HIS FOLLOWERS TO KINGDOM COME.
IT IS VERY SURPRISING THAT AFTER SPENDING HIS ENTIRE BBC INTERVIEW ATTACKING THE MDC-T PARTY & ITS TENDENCY FOR VOILENCE, NCUBE RUSHES TO ACCUSE SOLDIERS FOR THE ATTACK.
IT MAKES NO SENSE ESPECIALLY SINCE HE WAS NOT EVEN THERE.
INFACT, ZANU-PF STANDS TO GAIN MUCH MORE FROM NCUBE DILUTING THE MDC-T SUPPORTER BASE.
NCUBE & HIS PARTY HAS NEVER BEEN & WOULD NEVER BE ANY THREAT TO ZANU-PF SO IT DOES NOT MAKE SENSE FOR ZANU-PF TO ORGANISE AN ATTACK ON NCUBE & HIS SUPPORTERS. WHAT FOR?
Labels: MDC, MDC FACTIONS, WELSHMAN NCUBE
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COMMENT - To be fair, Zeinab Badawi also gave Morgan Tsvangirai a hard time, when no one else would. Stephen Sackur interviewed Roy Bennett and Ben Freeth, and they looked like they were ready to beat him up at several times in the interview - not used to being opposed. But then, the show is called Hard Talk. (With part of Ambassador Dell's wikileaks cable included below.) The BBC
Hard Talk page is here.
Transcript: Ncube's BBC HARDtalk interview
18/09/2012 00:00:00
by New Zimbabwe.com
MDC leader and Industry Minister Welshman Ncube was a guest on the BBC’s HARDtalk programme aired on Tuesday [UK residents watch HERE]. This is the full transcript of his interview with HARDtalk host Zeinab Badawi:
ZEINAB BADAWI (ZB): Have opposition politicians in Zimbabwe learnt the lessons of the violence and disputed elections of 2008 in which Robert Mugabe and his party Zanu PF outmanoeuvred the Movement for Democratic Change and held on to power?
The MDC has since been in an uneasy power sharing government in which its main leader Morgan Tsvangirai is Prime Minister, but a breakaway MDC faction led by the Industry and Commerce Minister Welshman Ncube is splintering the opposition ahead of elections due by next June.
My guest today on HARDtalk is Welshman Ncube. Shouldn’t the opposition be united to better oppose Zanu PF?
Welshman Ncube welcome to HARDtalk.
WELSHMAN NCUBE (WN): Thank you.
ZB: It’s a general rule in politics isn’t it not just in Zimbabwe: weaken the opposition by splitting it. That’s what you’ve done.
WN: Well, it is of course correct that if the parties that are opposed to Zanu PF it would be that much easier to win the elections than when we are all fighting from our different corners. But there are things which are fundamental and matters of principle, matters of policy that divide us and have made that very, very difficult.
ZB: And is that much more important in your view to you than forming a credible opposition to Zanu PF?
WN: Well, what is important is that when we oppose Zanu PF and when we seek to remove Zanu PF we must all be clear and united in that the alternative government we want to establish will in fact, not just in deeds, will in fact be different from the Zanu PF government either by reference to corruption, by reference to mismanagement, by reference to non-violence – all of those things.
So when the things which divide us make some of us doubt that that government will be different from Zanu PF, that is why it is so important that we must be opposed to Zanu PF in both words and in deeds. There is no point in removing Zanu PF only to replace it with exactly the same entity.
ZB: Are you equating Morgan Tsvangirai, the Prime Minister, with President Robert Mugabe who has been in power for 32 years?
WN: I’m not equating anyone. I’m simply saying those things that divide us go to the heart of our opposition to Zanu PF. When we say we must be non-violent we must mean it and we must live it. So when our colleagues practise violence against others and also against themselves we say, eh [interrupted].
ZB: So which colleagues are you talking about here because you are being a little bit indirect. Just spell it out for us. Are you accusing the MDC faction led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai of waging some kind of campaign against your faction?
WN: No. I’m saying the things which divide us, the things which divided us at the time of the split are essentially to do with the things I’m talking about. If we begin to act violently against each other and against ourselves; if we begin to defy collective decisions that we would have made; if during for instance the currency of the inclusive government we have local government structures which act as corruptly as Zanu PF has done over the last 32 years, those are the things which divide us, and they are genuine differences.
ZB: Let me just fill people in of course that the MDC split back in 2005 when Morgan Tsvangirai didn’t want to contest the [senate] elections. I’m not going to go into the ins and outs of it but there was a breakaway faction led by Arthur Mutambara but you now lead that breakaway faction.
I want to ask you very, very clearly, and I would like a clear answer, should the MDC not just remain united under the Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai who after all is highly acclaimed in international circles. Very simple question, what’s you answer?
WN: Well, the answer is simple. The things that divide us now make it impossible for us to work together.
ZB: What have you got against Morgan Tsvangirai?
WN: Absolutely nothing against the person of Morgan Tsvangirai. Our differences are about our political behaviours and the things we do as politicians. I keep underlining, it is on record that our colleagues in the MDC-T often practise violence; it is on record that Morgan Tsvangirai himself has reversed collectively made decisions and it is also on record that the local government structures that they control have acted as corruptly if not more corruptly than the Zanu PF ones. Those are the things which divide us.
ZB: You refer to MDC-T which stands for the faction led by MDC Morgan Tsvangirai. But what you say is clearly at odds with what the international community believes. For example the French government has this summer conferred on Morgan Tsvangirai the Legion of Honour, the highest order it can because it says he upholds universal aspirations, morals and the spirit of progress.
The Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has said he is like Nelson Mandela, like Aung San Suu Kyi– a remarkable figure of our times, she has said.
The former American ambassador in Zimbabwe Christopher Dell has described Morgan Tsvangirai as brave, committed, by and large a democrat. He is also the only player on the scene right now with real star quality and the ability to rally the masses. I reel off all that, minister, because it is at odds with what you say.
This is what the leaving US ambassador to Zimbabwe, Christopher Dell, actually said about Morgan Tsvangirai in the Wikileaks Cables (Cable ID: 07HARARE638):
WHAT OF THE OPPOSITION?
10. (C) Zimbabwe's opposition is far from ideal and I leave convinced that had we had different partners we could have achieved more already. But you have to play the hand you're dealt. With that in mind, the current leadership has little executive experience and will require massive hand holding and assistance should they ever come to power.
11. (C) Morgan Tsvangarai is a brave, committed man and, by and large, a democrat. He is also the only player on the scene right now with real star quality and the ability to rally the masses. But Tsvangarai is also a flawed figure, not readily open to advice, indecisive and with questionable judgment in selecting those around him. He is the indispensable element for opposition success, but possibly an albatross around their necks once in power. In short, he is a kind of Lech Walesa character: Zimbabwe needs him, but should not rely on his executive abilities to lead the country's recovery. Arthur Mutambara is young and ambitious, attracted to radical, anti-western rhetoric and smart as a whip. But, in many respects he's a light-weight who has spent too much time reading U.S. campaign messaging manuals and too little thinking about the real issues. Welshman Ncube has proven to be a deeply divisive and destructive player in the opposition ranks and the sooner he is pushed off the stage, the better. But he is useful to many, including the regime and South Africa, so is probably a cross to be borne for some time yet. The prospects for healing the rift within the MDC seem dim, which is a totally unnecessary self-inflicted wound on their part this time. With few exceptions ' Tendayi Biti, Nelson Chamisa ' the talent is thin below the top ranks.
WN: Well, I’m a Zimbabwean, I live in Zimbabwe. I worked within the united MDC, I worked outside the united MDC and I can tell you the things on which we differ are fundamental, they go to the very heart of the struggle against Zanu PF. I repeat, we don’t want to replace Zanu PF in name, and not also in terms of the things it does.
ZB: You’ve made that point, but just address the fact that there is lavish praise heaped upon Morgan Tsvangirai by various international figures and it doesn’t really... it’s not consistent with the kind of picture you are now portraying of the MDC faction led by Morgan Tsvangirai. So just explain that to us.
WN: All I can say is that those who might be somewhere in Australia, those who might be in Paris, in Washington are entitled to have their opinions about any of the leaders in Zimbabwe, just as much as we are entitled as Zimbabweans to have our own opinions about ourselves and our leaders. And respectfully [interrupted].
ZB: Christopher Dell, the former American ambassador, highly regarded, spent many years in Zimbabwe and what I quoted was what he said in WikiLeaks which were revealed in 2010. But you know what he said about you, you know what he said about you?
WN: I’ve read about what he said about me, but the point [interrupted].
ZB: Let me remind you, let me remind you, well let me remind you.
WN: Go ahead.
ZB: He described you, if I may, as highly divisive and says you should be taken off the political stage.
WN: Yes, and what’s the question around that?
ZB: So what do you answer to that quote ‘highly divisive and should be taken off the political stage’?
WN: Well, again that is Dell’s opinion, as democrats we respect it but we disagree with it. I don’t know what it means when an ambassador of one of the biggest democracies in the world speaks of taking leaders off the political stage, I don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. And I think it is unfortunate and it cannot be consistent with the values and principles the United States wants to defend around the world.
ZB: When we look at the Global Political Agreement, the GPA, which came into force after those elections in 2008, disputed, and we saw what the French called “cohabitation” whereby the MDC joined the government under President Robert Mugabe. But you are stating quite clearly that that has been a failure, not only because of the difficulties with Robert Mugabe, but within the MDC itself, it’s been a failure.
WN: Well, the inclusive government has not been a total failure, but it could have done better. In terms of political reforms clearly, clearly we have failed. We have not done the things that we should have done by now, we should have created the necessary conditions for free and fair elections, that has not happened. There are many parts of the GPA on media reforms, on provincial governors that we have not implemented.
However, in terms of where Zimbabwe was in 2008 or beginning of 2009 in economic terms we have made a lot of progress. We have a country which was virtually on the verge of collapse if not completely collapsed, that economy we have managed to resuscitate it, it’s now working. Yes it could do better, and yes people are still poor but you don’t have an economy which is basically on its knees anymore, it’s an economy which its way to recovery. Whether or not it recovers now depends on what happens at the next election.
ZB: Alright. I will just [inaudible] economy since you have raised it. You have a $400 million budget deficit, and growth has now been downgraded from more than 9 percent, which was admittedly very high, down to 5.6 percent. Even though progress has been made, and let’s face it that was from a very low base, things are going backwards now.
WN: Yes of course some of the gains that we have made over the last three years are threatened now with reversal, in particular as we move towards an election and as we begin to grandstand around election rhetoric.
In terms of the economy as minister of industry for instance, industry recovered from capacity utilisation of 10 percent when we came in to 57 percent by the end of last year. It sort of plateaued, it’s not going anywhere now largely because of our failure to stabilise the political environment so as to bring in confidence to have access to lines of credit. That has not happened.
So we are beginning to see reversal yes, but we need to move as quickly as we can... to continue with the recovery which we have started.
ZB: It’s not just political instability because people don’t know when the elections are going to be happening and so on but it’s also because of the so-called indigenisation policy that came into effect in Zimbabwe in 2011 whereby foreign companies have got to hand over 51 percent of their controlling share to local companies and that has scared a lot of foreign investors, frankly?
WN: Well, that’s absolutely true. As minister responsible for trade I spend a lot of my time talking to investors, talking to business leaders in and outside Zimbabwe and there is no doubt that the elephant in the living room is our indigenisation laws. Clearly, clearly a lot of investors are unhappy with them and find it difficult to come and invest in Zimbabwe.
Whereas we all agree that we must do some form of empowerment, the manner in which we are doing it and the thresholds that we have set are clearly unrealistic and unreasonable in our circumstances.
ZB: So when you talk about some form of empowerment the idea is that you indigenise these interests so that the whole Zimbabwean population can benefit from it. What’s the evidence then that any benefits will trickle down to the ordinary Zimbabwean, because there isn’t plenty of that, is there? Not much evidence of that.
WN: I personally don’t like the word indigenisation because I don’t think it has any precise meaning. I prefer the term empowerment. Empowerment is broader and perhaps more accurate in terms of what some of us would want to achieve. If we are talking about empowerment, we should be talking about encouraging investment so that we can create jobs and employment for people, we can create the necessary business environment for indigenous Zimbabweans to form their own businesses to compete with others. Empowerment must not necessarily mean taking over someone else’s business.
ZB: But have you achieved that? You are the minister for commerce and industry, trade and so on and you look at Zimbabwe and the state of the people, one and half million people on the verge of starvation according to the United Nations World Food Programme, or will need food assistance rather.
WN: Zimbabwe is one of the richest countries in Africa, its mineral wealth is second to none, its climate, weather conditions, its land is also among the best in the world in terms of what we can do to our agriculture. If we can fix our politics, and fix our economic policies we will be able to deliver to our people by actually delivering on a stronger economy, on strong and successful businesses. That is the only way to do it.
ZB: Sure, but if you look at the realities the Minister of Finance Tendai Biti said this year that for instance when he looks at the Marange diamond field he was expecting something like US$600 million to go into the state coffers, from the Marange diamond fields he has only received US$19 million. He said there were 230,000 [Editor’s note: Biti’s figure was 75,000 ‘ghost workers’, the figure stated is for entire civil service] fictitious government employees who somehow are drawing salaries and that 10,000 new jobs have been created in the past few weeks or so in government.
That’s the reality of Zimbabwe and yet you talk about ‘oh a new business climate’ and that kind of thing, that’s not happening is it?
WN: All of what you have just summarised and attributed to the Finance Minister is absolutely correct. If you look at the diamond wealth, the diamonds we are mining, if we were actually administering them and managing them properly we should be getting the sort of money that the Minister of Finance has been mentioning. We are not doing it, that’s why at the beginning we said the inclusive government has not functioned as we expected to do, there is a complete lack of transparency for instance around Marange diamonds.
So all of those things cannot be fixed, in my opinion, unless and until we have free and fair elections and we have a government which is properly elected by people.
ZB: So you just accepted or you just at least stated that you basically have no power?
WN: Well, it is correct that’s why we keep saying there is a parallel government in many respects; that is why the Minister of Finance says there is no authority over Marange and there is no-one who is accountable to him when in fact they are supposed to be accountable to him.
ZB: So do you have power? Do you have any power as minister of commerce and industry to do what you would like to do to encourage investment, empowerment and all that kind of thing? Do you have power?
WN: Yes and no. We have the power and authority to do those things that are within our power, within our mandate as a ministry where we do not need the cooperation of anyone else; we have the power to do those things. But there are things as the ministry of industry where we would require the cooperation of other arms of government and other ministries and clearly therefore we would not have the power.
ZB: OK, you’re talking about those ministries controlled by Zanu PF perhaps. But let me ask you, you talk about the elections, free and fair elections are vital to bring some kind of stability. But these elections, no date, they should be held by June but you’re all squabbling about what should be in the draft constitution.
WN: Correct, we should have the elections, or at least parliament will stand automatically dissolved on June 29 next year. The elections must then be held no later than the end of October next year as an outer limit which is permissible under the current constitution.
Clearly, we had expected to be able to have done the constitution earlier than now, we have not done so [because] there are new disagreements around the constitution and we hope we can overcome those differences with the assistance of SADC [interrupted].
ZB: OK, just spell those out. You are talking there about the Southern African Development Cooperation who are trying to mediate in all this. But just spell out for us, what are the disagreements? In essence it looks like the MDC are concerned about powers in the constitution for the president being enshrined in the new constitution, and also control over the armed forces and so on. But you’ve also got disagreements about same sex marriage, dual citizenship, that kind of thing. So what are the stumbling blocks?
WN: Let me start by saying that firstly, there actually is an agreement. The structures that we had set, what is called the COPAC committee, the constitutional parliamentary committee, has actually agreed on a draft constitution signed by representatives of all the three parties in the inclusive government and formally handed over to the Speaker of Parliament by the co-chairpersons of that parliamentary committee. So there is an agreement, we must underline that.
What is now happening is an attempt by Zanu PF to renege from that agreement by rewriting the agreed draft to include all those things that you have mentioned. For instance, they are attempting to turn the Bill of Rights into what you may call a declaration of non-rights when in fact it’s supposed to be a declaration of rights; they are going back to try and recreate an imperial presidency; they are re-introducing certain clauses that will undermine the judiciary and so forth and so on. Altogether, there are over 200 amendments that they have attempted to make to an already agreed draft constitution.
ZB: Alright, so there is a deadlock. Is it worth delaying these elections that you yourself says Zimbabwe so badly needs because of disagreements or inability to put the draft constitution to a referendum?
WN: Ye sit is worth delaying the elections because there is no point in rushing to an election whose outcome will be disputed and will create another political deadlock which will be with us for a long time. It is better to delay the election whether it’s by five months, six months and then do the elections properly under a constitution which will guarantee our liberties, our freedoms; which will curtail executive power in a manner which protects the citizens.
ZB: But you know Lovemore Madhuku who runs an NGO, the National Constitutional Assembly – very broad based there is lots of labour, student, women’s groups, churches, human rights organisations – says even if there were a new constitution agreed, he says there is no basis to support this document because it’s being supported by politicians including you obviously. So where are the people in all this?
WN: Well, Lovemore, Dr Madhuku or Professor Madhuku, is entitled to his opinion but some of us respectfully disagree [interrupted].
ZB: Well it’s not just his as I said, he represents quite a wide body of opinion.
WN: I think the three political parties in the inclusive government represent a wider body of political opinion in Zimbabwe than any single civil society organisation. But the point I want to make is that the constitution has to have political leadership, there is no constitution anywhere in the world that was ever made by civil society without the political structures, without the elected people participating. I know not, I’m a constitutional lawyer myself.
ZB: I want to ask you something very important which is, let’s just assume that elections happen and you overcome these problems. One Major General Trust Mugoba was quoted in May 2012 in AllAfrica magazine saying the army would not allow the MDC to take over power if it wins an election because it doesn’t represent the ideology of liberation struggle. So whatever happens you have opposition from the army clearly, what do you say to that?
WN: I think of course it is true that the higher levels, the higher echelons of the military have made the statements which capture what you’ve just said. But it is also true that the rank and file in the military does not necessarily come from that school of thought.
But what is important in our case is that both the two formations of the MDC have raised this issue squarely with the facilitator, with SADC, to say there is no point in having an election unless the roadmap to that election includes guarantees and undertakings from the military, and with SADC guarantees as well, that the military will accept the verdict of the people and that they must accept in advance of an election that the sovereignty of Zimbabwe lies in the people and not in the military.
ZB: Very quickly, a few seconds, if Morgan Tsvangirai says he will not contest elections if Robert Mugabe was the candidate for Zanu PF would you? In a word?
WN: Well, look, we cannot determine for other parties who their candidates are. It is up to Zanu PF to field its candidate, all we ask of that candidate is to be bound by the democratic traditions and to accept the will of the people and to refrain from violence.
ZB: Minister Welshman Ncube, thank you very much indeed for coming on HARDtalk.
WN: Thank you.
[Transcript by New Zimbabwe.com]
Labels: BBC, HARDTALK, MDC, MDC FACTIONS, WELSHMAN NCUBE
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MDC-99, NCA close ranks over constitution
08/08/2012 00:00:00
by Jeffrey Moyo
THE Job Sikhala-led MDC-99 closed ranks with the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) to dismiss the country’s draft constitution as the work of politicians, and not the people as the document purports.
Sikhala said: “The protagonists who have been participating in the writing of the constitution have stated that the draft came out as a result of negotiations between the three political parties in the inclusive government.
“So if this thing has been a negotiated document, it means that this is not the constitution that belongs to the people of Zimbabwe, it is a three-party document which they agreed among themselves to be a document which they think represented the views of the people of Zimbabwe.”
Zimbabwe’s draft constitution – three years in the works – appeared stalled early last month following disagreements between the three parties over various provisions.
In the end, the document was sent to the parties’ negotiators who also led the power sharing talks in 2008 to smooth over the cracks.
NCA leader Lovemore Madhuku, whose organisation has campaigned since 2000 for a “people-driven constitution”, said the draft constitution was flawed.
Madhuku said the Parliamentary Constitution Select Committee (COPAC) which steered the constitutional reform had failed in its public duty, citing the failure to make publicly-available a so-called “national report” which acted as a guide to the drafters following nationwide public consultations.
Madhuku said on Tuesday: “We have made it very clear that we will not accept the new constitution. Where is the national report? It was expected to be there before the draft and at the moment we were supposed to be analysing what the people said and how it was incorporated into the draft but procedure was flouted and this is not acceptable.”
Sikhala and Madhuku – speaking seperately – also voiced opposition to a provision that would increase the number of MPs to 250 from the current 210 to accommodate more women. Both men say the parties could have achieved gender balancing without the need to create 30 more special seats for women.
“We don’t expect the return of a bloated parliament in our country; we already spend 73 percent of our budget on public sector pay,” Sikhala said.
The combative MDC-99 leader denied suggestions that his party was supporting Zanu PF, which is demanding amendments to the draft.
“Actually 85 percent of the draft’s content is supportive of Zanu PF ideas,” Sikhala said.
“This is a product of Zanu PF’s incestuous relationship with the other MDC formations.”
Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC-T party and the Welshman Ncube-led MDC have both resolved to back the new constitution while insisting that they will block Zanu PF attempts to renegotiate certain clauses.
Zanu PF’s politburo meets in Harare on Wednesday night – the third such meeting – to try and come up with a position on the draft.
Zanu PF claims the drafters deviated from the "national report", further slowing down a process which has consumed over US$40 million.
Labels: CONSTITUTION, COPAC, JOB SIKHALA, LOVEMORE MADHUKU, MDC FACTIONS
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Zanu PF: when defeat gets so sweet
14/07/2012 00:00:00
by Nathaniel Manheru
THE Thursday judgement by the Supreme Court gives legal weight to the call for early elections, does it not? Of course the judgement relates immediately to three constituencies.
Yet its ramifications extend well beyond the three, to suggest many possibilities, all of them favourable to Zanu PF. The floodgates have been opened and it does not require any clairvoyance to predict the direction of events henceforth.
Only a little memory will help one recall that Zanu PF has been strenuously making a case for the re-enfranchisement of the more than 30 constituencies which have been frozen out of any representation, largely by God’s hand, minutely, but significantly by misconduct, critically by treachery on the part of three sitting MPs who decided to desert their party for a rival one.
On life support
Significantly, the court action has been brought about by the dissident MPs seeking to eat their cake while having it. The trio used the law to place themselves beyond disciplinary action of the party they had deserted, indeed to beat the national law which forbids floor-crossing. They used the law to cull comfort from, and hide in interstices created by the leadership wrangle in their former party.
They sought and found refuge in Arthur Mutambara, himself leaning on the life-support machine of legal technicalities. And as Mutambara stretched for a little more ounces of life, the trio clearly saw that they risked becoming his extended patient, thereby sharing his fate.
They wrenched themselves from the life of a man so providentially condemned, a desperate man whose sojourn at the country’s courts owed more to a plea for one more gasp than to the promise or prospect of one more life.
When the president loses to himself
As leader of this MDC faction, Arthur Mutambara is finished. Arguably, as a leader of anything in Zimbabwe’s treacherous politics, he fares no better.
Indeed his gratuitously foolhardy praise of Morgan Tsvangirai only last week amounts to coquettish or pimpish courtship by a proverbial woman only too aware of deeper wrinkles, coarsening flesh and greater, unimpressive gaps in a cavernous mouth that once kissed sweet, that once emitted scented breath.
The trio has discovered it measures 96 degrees in King Arthur’s shade, hence the legal action whose ostensible target is the President, but which in essence tells the story of continued fragmentation of the MDC formations.
Indeed a legal battle where Mugabe the President loses to Mugabe leader of a political party seeking an early electoral end to the political charade sparsely christened government of national unity. That is the beauty of politics’ multiple identities, is it not?
When a narrow man wins
With significant defections from MDC-T to MDC-N in Bulawayo only a week or so ago, and the rancour that followed, it is clear that MDC-N cannot wait for by-elections in the region, much as it is still to consolidate its hold in the three constituencies, let alone muster enough resources to match, still less surpass MDC-T.
But its recovery has been remarkable in a game where money might not be everything. MDC-N has been hammering the issue of devolution principally. MDC-N has been hammering Zanu PF, something Welshman Ncube and Priscilla Misihairabwi consider a sine qua non to electability in Matabeleland.
More significantly, MDC-N has been hammering MDC-T as yet another face of a Shona conspiratorial domination of Matabeleland. Very narrow and potentially divisive politics indeed, but politics finding currency, finding fertile ground in a region whose depressed economic fortunes, while representative of the state we are in as Zimbabweans, have always been made to assume a parochial resonance.
And the Dimaf debacle has been the proverbial hyena that coughs out white hair in a village which cannot account for one of its elderly women. The whole blame falls, arguably deservedly, on MDC-T whose Secretary General, as the country’s finance minister, is read as withholding a lifeline to the region.
The politics which this situation spawns for the MDC-T are tellingly evident in Thokozani Khupe’s unscheduled and undignified eloping from her urban constituency to what she perceives to be a safe rural seat.
The move amounts to another ringing victory for Welshman who had been humiliated by the same lady in 2008. Much worse, it has triggered a potentially divisive demotion of Thabitha Khumalo as MDC-T’s deputy spokeswoman.
However read, Welshman should be credited for mounting enough pressure on MDC-T as to trigger bleeding contradictions in that party.
Zanu PF’s needless missteps
But who else is smiling? Zanu PF of course! An MDC-T which is lamed in Matabeleland is an MDC-T which gets softened nationally. The party is bound to find it harder to defend its bid for presidency, well before we even factor in other complications gathering pace inside it.
And in spite of his waspish attacks on Zanu PF, Welshman is doing Zanu PF insuperable service, the same way that Mutambara’s gratuitous courtship and panegyrizing of Tsvangirai reinforces Ncube’s hatred of Tsvangirai, again for Zanu PF.
He is not, after all, aiming for Presidency. He is aiming for leverage against whoever emerges the President, something Zanu PF should have quickly grasped. And there is a lot to censure Zanu PF for in the unfolding equation.
Zanu PF could have been laughing more in the unfolding circumstances. While there was a genuine legal argument to delay the ascendancy of Ncube both to the leadership of the other faction of the MDC and to national vice premiership, there was little that stood in the way of Zanu PF to make some symbolic show of goodwill and fairness.
We did not have to make Ncube win his place — or the obverse — to make Mutambara effortlessly keep what he no longer deserved, even then to our detriment. And with each legal battle Ncube won, the legal argument which Zanu PF summoned and relied upon to keep Mutambara in the posts deteriorated from the threadbareness to an outright fig leaf we did not need for our so well-covered front.
After all, this was none of our fight, and the man we appeared to redeem did not deserve our sacrifice, both intrinsically and by his subsequent political conduct in giving meaningless succour to the deserters.
Validating conspiracy theory
We also ceded to Ncube the vote of victimhood. For the region, he became a victor orphaned, nay, lynched by Zanu PF which should have dressed his weeping wounds after a bloody fight.
We also pushed him into a harder corner and stance from where he now demands both political and governmental leadership as a matter of self-gotten victory. And in the eyes of the voter in Matabeleland, we grew him into a lawyer who demonstrated professorship in his grasp and use of the courts, indeed grew him into a politician who uses the law to successfully punch through adversity, to punch above his numerical weight.
The materially inconsequential, but unrequited victories he has won in the leadership contest, has become huge symbolically for a region looking for a hero, craving for representational victory. We have cost ourselves trust in Matabeleland, even lending credence to Ncube’s conspiracy theories.
Pilfering Look East
Zanu PF can still regain ground, both symbolically and materially. Ncube still needs the goodwill of Zanu PF which he has deserved for long without getting, and there is a lot that can be done between now and elections. After all, the issue of devolution is now behind us.
Materially, Zanu PF’s support base in Matabeleland has remained stable, unshaken. But it has also not grown, with current efforts aiming at growing it against years of stagnation. Given the current realignment of forces in Matabeleland, there is real scope for that magical growth, against an MDC-T fending off attacks from MDC-M and Dumiso Dabengwa’s Zapu.
The frantic attempts by the MDC-T to raise its image using the Zanu PF initiated and negotiated water agreements with the Chinese government in the context of the broad Look East policy, clearly reveal an MDC-T at its tether’s end. We do not have to allow it to prance about as a solution to Matabeleland’s water woes, merely because it holds the water portfolio in the inclusive government.
The real game-changer
This being the environment within which the Supreme Court decision has been handed down, so what now? Well, effectively, the Supreme Court decision has brought the electoral law into what until now has been pre-eminently a politically framed national question of when to have elections.
Until this court decision, the whole debate has evolved as if only GPA principals, watched by SADC through its facilitator, have been the only factors at play. The Supreme Court has now shown this was a mistaken overrating of persons and institutions which, in any event, are themselves the players in the game about to begin. It has shown it is a game-changer, indeed the writer of rules of the game which SADC seeks to referee.
This is a key adjustment to the whole electoral equation in which all sorts of political arguments, not least among them the bogey of “outstanding issues”, were being summoned to extend indefinitely the saccharine but increasingly illegal governing moment.
If the MDC formations needed until June next year “to level the playing field”, they now have until August this year to do so. And we are in July!
Once we hold those by-elections as required by this judgment and presumably many others to come, it means the argument for delaying a national poll in the name of “outstanding issues” becomes hopelessly threadbare, obscene in fact. The MDC formations may now have to go back to the courts to make a case for a review of the Supreme Court judgment! Their only hope is to boycott elections, or to discredit them by triggering violence.
When can’t pay won’t wash
Secondly, if the “can’t pay” argument will not wash with the Supreme Court, it certainly implies the law takes the view that the ballot box may not be deferred for whatever reason, beyond the limits of the law.
Again that relocates the electoral epicentre from SADC’s capitals where the MDC formations have been heavily lobbying, to some small building so near to Parliament where the formations sit, so near to Munhumutapa from where these formations pretend to govern.
Again that makes Tendai Biti’s ministry irrelevant to the timing of elections and just as well that he had already set aside the US$100 million in SDRs for that purpose. He must find the money. In just this one Thursday, in the month of July, in the Year of Our Lord Two Thousand and Twelve, Zimbabwe’s sovereignty has been reasserted. Firmly.
Changing the governing landscape
Practically, the President will have to decide whether to proceed piecemeal, all the time waiting for a prod from another judgment from the Supreme Court as more challenges are made, or to proceed by way of declaring elections due in all the vacant constituencies throughout the country.
That means a mini-general election of far-reaching consequences for all parties, more so for the MDC-T which was beginning to use its ill-gotten majority in the lower house to abuse parliamentary processes. I bet my bottom dollar the MDC-T is fated to emerge worse off at the conclusion of such a process, however managed.
Zanu PF is sure to carry the day in by-elections. Check its record! Of course such an outcome will be a huge fillip, not just for governance in the immediate aftermath, but also for the general elections to follow.
Bolder, more daring measures
Or more dramatically and boldly, the President may use this judgment to dissolve Parliament and get the country to move post haste to harmonised elections! After all he is the President. What is more, as he correctly argues, the constitution was never a precondition for holding elections. Yet it is being used as if it is.
Zimbabwe has a constitution in place, on the strength of which elections have been held in the past, with the MDC even making significant gains under it. What is more, that constitution has undergone sweeping changes, all of them prompted by the MDC formations which participated in drafting the resultant amendments we now have as part of the electoral law. That often forgotten fact came through in Patrick Chinamasa’s interview last week.
Fearing having power themselves
And as I write, Parliament is considering further changes to the electoral law, changes which would have taken a mere day had it not been for the fact that one of the MDC formations has, true to type, again reneged on positions agreed to early on under the GPA. But with the pressure of the Supreme Court judgment now evident, even an impasse on that front may no longer matter. Quite the contrary, it could very well be the reason for calling for early polls.
And as is already established, the prevarication of the MDC-T on all these changes and on the draft constitution has more to do with reservations which are internal and unique to it, than with the lack of consensus between parties.
Acting on fulsome optimism, the MDC-T fears a constitution that creates a strong executive, lest it misgoverns with it! Its leader, says some of its core players, cannot be trusted with undiminished powers by which disciplined Robert Mugabe governed! Tingapera, they opine.
When the EU begins to crack
Externally, something even more dramatic is beginning to happen. The accretive pressures which Zanu PF has been building against sanctions, both singly and through a series of manoeuvres that got the MDC formations in, have now got the offending EU to begin to crack.
The judicious leak through the Telegraph, itself an establishment paper, this week comes as a culmination of a series of not-so-subtle measures which the Conservatives-led British coalition has been deploying to undo the damage from the Labour days, been doing to reverse the constraining anti-Zimbabwe hype which the Labour government had over the years whipped to frenzied proportions.
Only last week I detailed aspects of this campaign whose local reflex is a despairing sense of abandonment on the part of the local white factor, so aggressively expressing itself through the effete Roy Bennett. But the British government has crossed the Rubicon and shall not make any further sacrifices for what, after all, are remnant elements from the rebellious UDI.
Britain has had to come to the realisation that picking a fight over the preservation of narrow Rhodesian interests at the expense of its bilateral relations with Zimbabwe might not be the right way to protect her place and interests in Southern Africa. After all, even demographically Rhodesia is a smashed beachhead which can no longer sustain Britain’s entry and penetration into the hinterland.
Ubi panis ibi patria
Much worse, this mistaken fight waged by Labour has hardened Southern Africa through Zimbabwe’s viral political influence worrisomely docking in dirty streets and settlements where the poor, unfulfilled majority are found in its neighbourhood. Within the European Union itself, the British racially bigoted position against Zimbabwe has become harder and harder to defend.
Critical players within the EU were beginning to make overt steps towards cutting deals with Zimbabwe, a move made more compelling and uncontrollable by the economic mayhem afflicting the Union.
One does not need much thought to provide an answer to whether or not a Greece, or Portugal, or Spain, or Italy so threatened with economic chaos need go by EU solidarity and sentiment, and not fall for a portion of the shimmering riches of Chiadzwa which Zimbabwe licentiously continues to dangle. And Dame Zimbabwe has been doing lots of lewd moves to a hungry subcontinent, knowing fully well the old saying, Ubi panis ibi patria, will do the trick.
Reading false defeats
I have been reading some very immature commentary on this sanctions matter from people I expect to know better. First, the whites. White voices have cautioned the EU against speedy removal of sanctions. They urge the EU to remember what the sanctions were about in the first instance.
Obscenely and incredulously, these voices proceed to suggest that sanctions had something to do with the realisation of democracy for the native here! I hope they grow up.
Then you have black politicians who naively think that the removal of sanctions wrong-foots Zanu PF. Really?How does the successful realisation of Zanu PF’s decade-long campaign yield a setback for it? They are in for a rude awakening.
The reversal of sanctions could very well be the beginning of a winning psychosis for the party. After all, the enemy has not been a small one; the victory thus cannot be a day-long carnival only, surely. Or the obverse: that those guilty of bringing the Nation to such a long grief cannot suffer a short guilt, a guilt feeling far shorter than ecstasy, surely?
For as long as the MDC formations live politically sanctions shall remain their enduring political signifier.
Indigenisation, the breaker
Much more, none within this dreaming tribe ever pauses to ask what Zanu PF’s core campaign message is, or is going to be. It was never going to be sanctions, surely, much as the issue of sanctions is sure to create the necessary atmospherics.
In any case the removal of sanctions owe to greater pressure mounted through the policy of indigenisation, is that not so? So why relegate the causal factor? It sounds very childish until one remembers this is an argument frothing from mouths of grown-ups! But one can depress these grown-up infants even more. America will not remove sanctions, certainly not before our elections.
And American sanctions have been the more overt, the more extensive, the more hurtful. So the sanctions discourse will not go away, in fact will be ramped up to greater frenzy, what with this inspiring breakthrough in Europe! It is such faulty reasoning which has always been the bane of opposition politics, the boon for Zanu!
Make no mind them!
Overall, the deck is clearing itself, fast too! Of course the EU will shout preconditions, will spice up the removal of sanctions with copious threats. Make no mind them! They have to save face. They have to manage home constituencies.
European sanctions are going, not by the largeness of European heart, still less the British one (if hearts they have). Sanctions are going because we have successfully turned them into such a frightful foreign policy disutility. Because we have held firm and fast. Because we have exhausted the ardour of the quisling politics they have spawned here. Yes, because we have forced EU onto the table, as in 1979. Yet another victory, Zimbabwe.
Icho!
Nathaniel Manheru is a columnist for the Saturday Herald. E-mail him: nathaniel.manheru@zimpapers.co.zw
Labels: MDC FACTIONS, NATHANIEL MANHERU, ZANU-PF
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MDC-T factionalism: Khumalo demoted
11/07/2012 00:00:00
by Chris Gande I VOA
THE MDC-T on Wednesday demoted Thabitha Khumalo as its deputy spokesman and named Public Works Minister Joel Gabhuza in her place.
Khumalo, the MP for Bulawayo East, becomes the first victim of the factionalism that has rocked the party in Bulawayo where dozens of supporters have deserted the party to join a rival MDC faction led by Industry Minister Welshman Ncube. MDC-T sources said Khumalo’s demotion was part of a mini-reshuffle of secretary positions.
The party is expected to announce the leadership changes after a national executive meeting slated for Harare on Thursday.
Khumalo has been on a collision course with the party leadership following her election to the position of deputy president of a faction of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions led by Lovemore Matombo. After the split of the labour body last year, the party chose to back a faction of the ZCTU led by George Nkiwane.
A petition is reported to be circulating in Makokoba - a constituency riven by the incessant infighting that saw the defection of more than 200 members early this month - targeting local Senator Matson Hlalo who is believed to be Khumalo’s ally. The petition demands Hlalo’s suspension from the party.
One of Khumalo’s allies said last night: “What is surprising is that all those who deserted the party claimed they were not happy with deputy president Thokozani Khuphe’s leadership style, but here we see Thabitha being victimised.”
Khumalo had also infuriated the party’s leaders, sources say, by her campaign to legalise prostitution and support of gay rights.
She declined to comment on her demotion on Wednesday night, but promised to issue a statement after Thursday’s meeting.
Gabhuza told the Voice of America’s Studio 7 last night that the reshuffle was part of a strategic restructuring ahead of general elections expected any time before June next year.
“As you know, the party had some vacancies due to deaths of senior members so this is part of the restructuring to fill those vacant positions,” he said.
When probed to explain how he had stepped into a position that was not vacant, Gabhuza said: “Maybe she will be posted to another position. I’m not sure on that though. Our leaders are going to make that clear soon.”
Labels: MDC, MDC FACTIONS
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Mutambara’s ouster above board — High Court
Wednesday, 13 June 2012 15:05
Daniel Nemukuyu Senior Court Reporter
PROFESSOR Welshman Ncube is the legitimate leader of MDC, the High Court ruled yesterday. Justice Bharat Patel also ruled that the congress held by the party in January 2011 was above board. The judge validated MDC’s election which gave Prof Ncube the mandate to lead the party as president.
The ruling follows an application by Jobert Mudzumwe, Morgan Changa-mire and other MDC members aligned to Prof Arthur Mutambara’s faction seeking to nullify the congress and the election of the party’s national executive.
The group — that was represented by Mr Obey Shava of Mbidzo, Muchadehama and Makoni — had argued that the congress was conducted in violation of the party constitution.
It was argued that organisers of the congress failed to send notices to all provinces and districts as required by the party constitution.
The group also argued that the election process was flawed in the sense that the party national organising secretary chaired the election, instead of the national chairman.
They also contested the election nomination process.
However, Justice Patel threw out the application for lack of merit.
He ruled that the national organising secretary was justified in chairing the election considering that the party chairman had deliberately absented himself.
Abandoning the congress because of the chairman’s deliberate absence would amount to promoting monopoly in party leadership.
“It follows that the resolution authorising the national organising secretary to perform the functions of the national chairperson at the congress, including the conduct of elections under Article 6.13.3 was perfectly competent under the aegis of Article 15.1.
“In the instant case, having deliberately absented himself from the congress the first applicant (Mudzumwe) cannot rely on his absence to argue that all the proceedings at the congress were a nullity because he was not present.
“To allow him to do so would enable him to benefit from his own deliberate abstention to the extreme prejudice of the entire MDC party membership.
“It would allow party leaders to circumvent and frustrate the electoral process and remain in office indefinitely through the simple stratagem of non-attendance,” he ruled.
Justice Patel shot down the challenge on proper notification of provinces and districts.
He ruled that the party members complied with the constitutional requirement.
“Over 4 000 delegates representing all the provinces and districts actually attended the congress.
“Those who did not attend, including the applicants, deliberately chose to boycott. In any event, virtually all the applicants were members of the national council and were present at the meeting where the dates of the congress were fixed.
“It follows in my view that the provision was not violated in any way and was duly complied with,” Justice Patel ruled.
The election process, the judge ruled, was above board and in line with the party constitution.
“In short, what transpired at the congress in casu was an electoral process. I am therefore inclined to conclude that the proceedings under consideration, notwithstanding the absence of any opposition to the candidates nominated, constituted elections in the formal sense, requiring the active involvement of a designated official to preside over the conduct of those elections,” the court ruled.
Mr Changamire said the group intended to appeal against the judgment.
“We are not happy with the judgment. The judgment left out a lot of issues. We are taking it up to the Supreme Court. We will soon file an appeal,” he said.
In December last year, Bulawayo High Court judge Justice Lawrence Kamocha granted an application by Prof Ncube to interdict Prof Mutambara from acting as both party president and principal to the Global Political Agreement.
Justice Kamocha ruled that basing on the final order sought, Prof Mutambara was no longer MDC president.
He said the party was justified in launching the application restraining Pro Mutambara from persisting with his behaviour.
The judge added that the outcome of the party congress remains valid until and unless it was set aside by a court of law.
However, the matter is still pending in the Supreme Court after Prof Mutambara appealed against the ruling.
Labels: ARTHUR MUTAMBARA, MDC, MDC FACTIONS, MDC-M, WELSHMAN NCUBE
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COMMENT - A lot of pro-MDC opionion in this piece. As far as I know, there was no 'sting' by Ari ben Menashe to 'set up' Morgan Tsvangirai, Morgan Tsvangirai pretty much set himself up, in that he should never have acquiesced in the suggestion of murdering President Mugabe. Also, considering that this is the MDC-99 faction of the MDC, other MDC factions should be looked at too.
Sikhala hit with rape, theft charges
12/05/2012 00:00:00
by Staff Reporter
MDC-99 leader and former St. Marys MP Job Sikhala has appeared in court charged with raping his personal assistant who also fell pregnant but later miscarried as well as stealing from her.
Sikhala, 40, has previously alleged a Central Intelligence Organisation plot to arrest and charge him with rape.
“The charges of rape being levelled against president Job Sikhala have no substance considering the fact that the woman swore in court that even though they shared the same room on one occasion, they did not engage in sex,” Sikhala claimed early this month.
“The ‘alien’ who by now should have been deported back to South Africa five months ago, is now being used by the CIO in circumstances reminiscent of the Ari Ben Menashe sting against Morgan Tsvangirai to achieve political ends.”
Sikhala was not asked to plead when he appeared before Harare magistrate Don Ndirowei on Friday. He was remanded out of custody on US$100 bail.
Prosecutors claim that Sikhala met the woman in South Africa last June while raising funds for his party and offered her a job as his personal assistant on a US$400 monthly salary in addition to 20 percent of all funds raised for his party.
The MDC-99 leader also promised to organise a work permit for her before helping her enter Zimbabwe illegally through Beitbridge on June 23.
The woman stayed at Sikhala’s St Marys home in Harare which he also shares with his two wives. Sometime in July, say prosecutors, the woman went out for a drink with Sikhala.
While returning from the pub, Sikhala allegedly put his hand on the woman’s leg and told her he had never slept with a white woman and wondered what it was like. He is said to have said some say explicit words and fondled the woman’s breasts while his other hand was inside her skirt but the woman managed to push him away.
A week, Sikhala allegedly ordered the woman to accompany him to a purported business meeting but, along the way, he drove to a city lodge where he led the woman into a room and stripped naked.
He ordered the woman to take off her clothes, reminding her that she was an illegal immigrant. The woman told him she did not like what he was doing but Sikhala proceeded to undress and rape her.
Sikhala raped the woman at the same lodge on another occasion and gave her US$5 afterwards, it is alleged.
Prosecutors claim Sikhala further raped the woman several times at his home, especially on Sundays when his two wives would have gone to church. She is said to have fallen pregnant but later miscarried.
The court heard that Sikhala, taking advantage of the fact that the woman had nowhere to stay and did not have any money, told her to leave his house if she did not want to sleep with him.
He also allegedly told her she would be locked up if she reported the rape since she was an illegal immigrant adding no action would be taken against him since he was a high profile politician.
The woman fled on December 20 and went to live with a friend where she was later arrested and jailed for contravening the country’s immigration laws. She later reported the alleged rape while serving her sentence.
Police also said a suitcase with the woman’s clothes said to be worth about R22,000 had gone missing at Sikhala’s house.
However his wives said she never stayed at the property.
Labels: JOB SIKHALA, MDC, MDC FACTIONS
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MDC-T suspends MPs over factionalism
Posted by By Our reporter at 29 April, at 23 : 29 PM
MDC-T has suspended two legislators from carrying out party activities in Manicaland as factionalism rocks the party’s provincial structures. The party’s Manicaland provincial structure led by Mr Julias Magarangoma said it has suspended Mutasa North MP, Mr David Chimhini and Mutasa Central legislator, Mr Trevor Saruwaka.
Four other provincial party members were also suspended for allegedly dividing the party. Mr Chimhini, who is said to be leading a party provincial parallel structure, contested and lost to Mr Magarangoma for the provincial chairperson post just before the party’s 2010 national congress that was characterised by violence.
Sources allege that Mr Chimhini encouraged his followers to boycott a party workshop that was going to be addressed by the party’s organising department recently. While Mr Chimhini was not available, Mr Saruwaka dismissed the suspensions, arguing that the province had no capacity to do that.
“They have no legitimacy to do that. It’s not binding. It’s null and void,” said Mr Saruwaka.
He said no formal communication has been given to them on the suspensions.
Mr Saruwaka said allegations being levelled against them were vague, making it difficult for them to make a meaningful response.
“The allegations are false. It is also not clear whether these allegations of dividing the party apply to all of us because we come from separate districts,” he said.
The letters of suspension were written by the MDC-T provincial secretary, Mr Misheck Kagurabadza.
Mr Kagurabadza, who is also the Mutasa South legislator, declined to comment.
Other party officials suspended include Mutasa North district chairperson Adam Muponda, Buhera South district chairperson Aaron Gandanga, Makoni West district chairperson Tendai Pfachi and Mutasa Central organising secretary Rose Mukodza.
Mr Muponda’s letter of suspension read: “At a meeting held on April 23 at the provincial offices, the executive committee resolved that you be suspended as chairperson pending investigations and subsequent disciplinary hearing for violating the party’s code of conduct, section 2, of the constitution of the MDC.”
Mr Chimhini is alleged to have sent a text message to his followers advising them not to attend a district workshop.
TH.
Labels: MDC, MDC FACTIONS
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MDC-T factional feuding intensifies
Posted by By Our reporter at 5 July, at 18 : 19 PM
FACTIONAL feuding has reached alarming levels between Tendai Biti and Morgan Tsvangirai factions in the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC-T).
The party is faced by another acute blow of split soon if sanity is not restored urgently by the vacillating leadership, poised on personal aggrandizement, and amassing individual wealth at the expense of the party.
This scenario was visibly evidenced at a Mashonaland East Provincial Executive Assembly held at Harvest House the party’s headquarters, in Harare recently. It was attended by thirty-five (35) members drawn from twelve (12) out of the nineteen (19) District Assemblies.
Piniel Denga, the Provincial Assembly Chairperson, presided over the meeting which discussed the intra-party violence that characterized the party’s national congress which was held in April 2011, in Bulawayo.
In his address, Denga lambasted Ian Kay, the former Mashonaland East Provincial treasurer, for the intra-party violence during the party’s national congress in Bulawayo.
He claimed that youths loyal to Kay triggered violence by assaulting Ethridge Kuziva, the Provincial Youth Assembly Chairperson.
Denga further accused Kay of being power hungry as evidenced by his reluctance to recognize the current Provincial Assembly. He is also accused of mobilizing party members in the province to pass a vote of no confidence against the Denga-led executive.
Owing to the recalcitrant Kay’s intolerance, the meeting resolved to write a forceful letter of complaint to the national executive over Kay’s devilish activities in the province.
Meanwhile, as a counter-measure, Ian Kay faction held a meeting at Number 19 Cherutombo Street, Dombotombo in Marondera owned by Chengetai Murova, the MDC-T Marondera District Assembly Chairperson Kay chaired the meeting which was attended by sixteen (16) people mainly former Provincial Executive members.
The meeting was in pursuit of the faction’s objective to form a parallel Provincial Executive to advance its cause.
Kay warned followers against leaking information to the Denga-led Provincial Assembly.
He urged them to attend the faction’s meeting at his residence in Harare on 29 June to discuss strategies to co-ordinate its agenda for the nineteen (19) party District Assemblies in the province.
The meeting also resolved to write a letter to Nelson Chamisa, the National Organising Secretary, disapproving the manner in which the 10 April 2011 Mashonaland East Provincial congress was held.
The meeting also heard that Obert Nhire, a Harare-based lawyer, had written a letter to Chamisa complaining over undue ill-treatment by Denga on 24 June 2011. This skirmish took place at a meeting which was held at Chigondo Business Centre in Wedza South Constituency.
Nhire was barred from declaring his candidature for the constituency on MDC-T party ticket for the forth-coming national polls.
The meeting later set up parallel provincial Coordination Team to co-ordinate the faction’s activities in the province. This is a clear-cut indicator for escalating factional hustles in the MDC-T between Tsvangirai, the President of the party and Secretary General Tendai Biti.
Denga is Tsvangirai’s loyalist while Kay belongs to the Biti camp.
MDC-T declared violence reached unprecedented levels as they are also involved in recent murders of police and army officers in Glen View and Chitungwiza respectively.
These officers faced their fate while in the line of their constitutional duties.
Labels: IAIN KAYE, MDC, MDC FACTIONS, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, POLITICAL VIOLENCE, TENDAI BITI
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MDC-T factionalism hits new levels
Friday, 24 June 2011 01:00
Herald Reporter
Factionalism in MDC-T has reached new levels with St Mary's MP Mr Marvellous Khumalo complaining to the party leadership of being threatened with death by Zengeza East legislator Mr Alexio Musundire.
It is understood Mr Khumalo belongs to Mr Morgan Tsvangirai's faction while Mr Musundire who is the party's provincial chairperson in Chitungwiza is linked to party's secretary-general Mr Tendai Biti's camp. In his letter to the party's provincial secretary, identified as Mr Parirenyatwa Chari, Mr Khumalo, said he now feared for his life over personal differences he had with Mr Musundire.
"He has threatened to murder me. To prove this case, Mr Musundire in his capacity as the de-facto provincial chairperson has not stopped working with an MDC expelled ward one councillor Adam Puzo, whom he calls shadow St Marys MP," reads the letter in part.
MDC VIOLENCE
* Unmasking MDC-T violence orgy
* Violence: MDC-T's hallmark
"I have also noted with deep concern that most of the times I drive in and around Chitungwiza, unknown people track me down. Some do even call on my cell phone numbers but do not disclose their identity."
Mr Khumalo said he felt duty bound to tell the party leadership for action to be taken.
"It is against this background, that I deem it necessary to alert my family and the entire party leadership and structures that in case of an injury to myself, property or attempt on my life, Mr Musundire must and will be held responsible," he said.
The legislator also complained that a similar report was made earlier to the party but no action was taken.
"I hope that this communication will kick-start a process to a solution to this security risk," he said.
On Mr Mhashu's case party supporters said the provincial council has not yet met since the party held its violent congress in Bulawayo and wondered why Mr Mhashu was seconded to the national executive as representing Chitungwiza.
"It now appears like people are fighting Mr Mhashu as an individual yet they are questioning the procedure which is flawed . . . we have no problem with his ascendancy," said one source.
Mr Musundire admitted to have seen the letter but declined to comment further saying doing so would legitimise falsehoods and malicious statements against him by Mr Khumalo.
"I don't have the capacity to trail a person and why would I?" quipped Mr Musundire.
The provincial executive council, said Mr Musundire, was still to convene a meeting to elect a representative of the province to the national executive post.
A source close to Mr Musundire, said Mr Khumalo was making the allegations in his bid to divert attention of allegations that he abused the Constituency Development Fund.
Several MDC-T supporters recently besieged his house demanding payment for work they had done, which they were told would come from CDF.
Mr Musundire is also under fire from some party supporters for allegedly seconding Mr Mhashu to the national executive without consulting other provincial party members.
In the run-up to the party's congress in Bulawayo, clashes were witnessed over the composition of provincial executive structures.
The fights pitted factions led by State Enterprises and Parastatals Minister Mr Gorden Moyo and Mzilikazi Senator Matson Hlalo.
The supporters fought running battles in the run up to the party's congress that was marred by violence and infighting, leaving scores injured.
There were also some skirmishes in other provinces, with supporters fighting for places at the Bulawayo congress.
The MDC-T youths' violence record is well documented and some of them are being accused killing a police officer recently in Glen View and have since appeared in court.
Labels: MDC FACTIONS, MDC VIOLENCE
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Tsvangirai accused of using mafia-style tactics
Posted by By Floyd Nkomo at 6 May, at 00 : 13 AM Print
MDC-T party leader Morgan Tsvangirai has been accused of running that party using ‘mafia-style’ tactics. The party was rocked by violence in the run-up to their Congress and the divisions now threaten to split the party.
“Many disgruntled party supporters now want to leave the MDC,” an MDC-T party member told The Zimbabwe Guardian on Wednesday. “Tsvangirai is running this party mafia-style, in secrecy, and
we don’t have a clue what is transpiring in that party or where we are going.
“Party leaders are being endorsed without proper electoral processes and this behaviour is unacceptable.”
Tsvangirai and his ‘Kitchen Cabinet’ are said to be mooting the idea of appointing a Council of Elders to accommodate those elements who have threatened to leave en masse after the National Congress, including some of the party’s founding members such as Engineer Elias Mudzuri.
Mudzuri left the Bulawayo Congress reduced to an ordinary card carrying member after losing the organising secretary post to Nelson Chamisa.
Sources within the party say the idea of setting up a Council of Elders is being pursued in an effort to pacify some supporters in Matabeleland and Masvingo who are not happy with the current status quo where their favourite leaders were demoted.
The Council of Elders as the sources claim will have a role of just rubber stamping decisions by the party’s top six.
“The problem with the MDC is that there are a lot of people who consider themselves founding members who should have important posts,” said our source.
“Look at Job Sikhala, he had to go and form what he thinks is an authentic party, MDC-99.
“Welshman Ncube and some members in his party also think they own the party.”
The likes of Mudzuri, Thamsanqa Mahlangu, Njabuliso Mguni, Editor Matamisa and other provincial executive members who lost their posts in the run-up to the Congress will be in such a council.
MDC-T provincial elections were characterized by violence.
Labels: MDC, MDC FACTIONS, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI
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Officials jostle for positions following Tsvangirai's declaration
Wednesday, 05 January 2011 20:21 Top Stories
A PRESS conference called by Mr Gorden Moyo, to do damage control on factionalism that is tearing MDC-T apart in Matabeleland was much ado about nothing as the former civic society activist failed to articulate himself well.
Mr Moyo, the Minister of State Enterprises and Parastatals, called a Press conference at his house Number 14, 19th Avenue in Famona in an attempt to clear the smoke surrounding his involvement in the alleged plot to unseat, MDC-T deputy president, Ms Thokozani Khupe.
Our sister paper, Sunday News revealed at the weekend that some senior MDC-T national executive members among them, Mr Moyo, Speaker of House of Assembly, Mr Lovemore Moyo, Mr Norman Mabhena, who is in the national council and Mrs Theresa Makone, the women’s wing chairperson, were positioning themselves for Ms Khupe’s post at the next congress scheduled for 10 May. Yesterday Mr Moyo was at pains to try and mend his party’s battered image.
When journalists fired questions about his political ambitions and appraisal of his deputy president’s capabilities, Mr Moyo tried to be slippery and continuously said he was not interested in the post.
“I want to set the record straight, I am not stampeding, I am not part of the pack if ever it is there, that is jostling for the deputy presidency in my party,” said Mr Moyo.
“I am only available to land a post when deployed by the party and the people even at the lowest post. Let everyone learn from me that I am not and I am not in that contest and there is no division or animosity in my party.”
When pinned down by journalists on alleged tensions and leadership crisis in his party and what he would do should people choose him as vice-president, Mr Moyo referred questions to the party spokesperson, Mr Nelson Chamisa.
The battle for the second top post is said to have fomented after the party leader, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai declared during a national council meeting “anyone who is my vice will take over my post when I leave power.”
According to party insiders, Ms Khupe’s main fault has allegedly been her “lack of strength and capacity” to face President Mugabe, Vice-Presidents Joice Mujuru and John Nkomo as well as Professor Welshman Ncube of MDC.
Serious campaigning is said to be taking place among the structures, a development that has given birth to divisions in Matabeleland as party supporters are torn apart between Mr Gorden Moyo and Mr Lovemore Moyo.-Chronicle
Labels: GORDEN MOYO, LOVEMORE MOYO, MDC, MDC FACTIONS
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Tsvangirai shaken by Welshman's ambitions
By: Our reporter
Posted: Wednesday, August 4, 2010 4:05 am
MDC-T President Morgan Tsvangirai has been shaken by Mr Welshman Ncube's desire to lead the other formation of the MDC.
Shaken by the waning popularity of his formation in Matabeleland, Mr Tsvangirai took his campaign to the oldest township in Bulawayo, Makokoba, where he attacked Mr Ncube.
Mr Tsvangirai accused Mr Ncube of not "coming out in the open before the 2005 split that he wanted to be president".
Mr Tsvangirai also did the same when he was the leader of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions. Asked at the end of 1998, at the University of Zimbabwe, whether he had presidential ambitions, Mr Tsvangirai said he was a labour leader and had no political aspirations.
Barely a year later, Mr Tsvangirai, formed the Movement for Democratic Change.
The MDC-T leader said Makokoba residents should support deputy MDC-T leader Thokozani Khupe and not Mr Ncube.
The MDC-T leader has been blamed for appointing token leaders from Matabeleland. Recently he fired Thamsanqa Mahlangu who was Deputy Minister of Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment. He is from Matabeleland.
Mr Tsvangirai also demoted Mr Gorden Moyo who was the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office. He is now Minister of Parastatals and State Enterprises.
Mr Ncube led the breakaway from the main party led by Tsvangirai in 2005.
Tsvangirai said it would have been better for Ncube to openly declare that his ultimate goal was to be MDC president.
“As we prepare our roadmap towards elections, some people will approach the constituency asking you to join their parties,” Mr Tsvangirai said.
He also attacked a revived Zapu party: “We have Zapu and the other MDC. I now hear that Ncube, who was beaten by (MDC-T vice president) Thokozani Khupe for the MP post, now wants to be president of MDC-M.
“Instead of hiring someone as he did with (MDC-M president Arthur) Mutambara, he now wants the post himself. It was better for him to come out in the open and say I want to be MDC president” said Tsvangirai, amid laughter from his audience.
Tsvangirai said people were wise and could not be easily fooled. He said his party was crafting a detailed strategy towards elections to avoid the repeat of the 2008 election.
“A roadmap towards the next election is being crafted. As MDC, we do not want a repeat of 2008 but a clear victory. I urge you to register for the elections” he said.
Labels: MDC FACTIONS, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, WELSHMAN NCUBE
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Tsvangirai faces the ultimate test as tenure ends
By: By Sihle Dube
Posted: Thursday, July 8, 2010 5:07 am
MDC-T leader is in a state of panic as his tenure at the helm of that party comes to a close, as we all expect. As someone who has always boasted about his democratic credentials, Mr Morgan Tsvangirai faces the ultimate test, the Democray Test.
Although critics have always questioned Mr Tsvangirai's democratic credentials, that party has always presented him as a true democrat who will lead Zimbabwe to the promised land.
This is despite all the unfairness that surrounded the ousting of Lucia Matibenga from that party's women's league and her subsequent absence from Mr Tsvangirai's cabinet, despite her unquestionable role in that party.
We all know that Mr Tsvangirai's close allies -- Ian and Theresa Makone -- who have been handsomely rewarded with cabinet and powerful positions in the party, are avowed 'enemies' of Ms Matibenga.
As the PM's Executive Secretary and party financier, Ian Makone wields a lot of power and influence in the MDC-T party and PM Tsvangirai has "sucked up" to this man, to a point where his wife was appointed co-Home Affairs Minister. In any other country, the appointment of Mrs Makone to the powerful ministry would have been seen as a scandal; but not in the MDC-T party nor in Zimbabwe.
Mr Tsvangirai's 'treatment' of the people of Matabeleland and those who criticise him, leaves a lot to be desired. He has snubbed Ndebeles in cabinet and appointed one or two individuals as an afterthought. This raises questions about his democratic credentials.
The MDC-T has responded to questions about Mr Tsvangirai's tenure in a somewhat blazay way; not coming out in the open. Party spokesman Nelson Chamisa, has dodged questions about Mr Tsvangirai's impending end of tenure.
It is pretty condescending to the Zimbabwean people, especially supporters of the MDC-T who have a right to elect their own leader, regardless of “international celebrity” status.
It is ridiculous to suggest that MDC-T politics is simply a struggle between the Biti faction, and the stuffy old MDC-T types who want closer links with Mr Tsvangirai. Things are more complicated – but Zimbabwean journalists are of course mostly too lazy to bother finding out what is really going on.
Mr Tsvangirai and his side of the MDC-T party have so far avoided the succession debate -- and have also stopped talking of succession politics in Zanu-PF, lest they open a can of worms.
Mr Tsvangirai will face a lot of resistance and will amost find his leadership untenable if he suspends congress and cull those who oppose him. Vultures in the MDC-T party are waiting in the wings to strike at the opportune moment.
He could step down and play a Mutambara by saying any party member can run for presidency. That way he could still contest the election; but not as party president.
If a peaceful transition of power from Mr Tsvangirai is achieved, then the MDC-T will really have come of age as a democratic party. Instead of defining itself purely as “a movement for democratic change”, it will have made a deliberate choice, for better or worse, to show the people of Zimbabwe that it can walk the talk.
Mr Tsvangirai will not, of course, disappear. He sees himself as the cult leader of that party and thinks the centre cannot hold without him. MDC-T handlers, funders and donors adore him as well as he seems to never toe the line. He does their bidding very well.
However, his love for things democratic will now be tested, and measured. Will he become the head of a “loyal party” to democratic ideals? Or will he simply seek to have the congress suspended and spend the next few years claiming that no one else in the MDC-T has the right to lead that party?
If he has the guts and intelligence to step down and allow new blood, he will grow in stature as a democrat. In that case he will certainly be recognised as a key person in the MDC-T's handling of the difficult business of running a country.
If, on the other hand, he bickers and holds on to power, and deny the likes of Tendai Biti -- the party secretary general -- the right to lead, then he will quite simply prove that he does not deserve a place in the future of ZImbabwe.
___________________________
*Sihle Dube is a lawyer and banker. She writes from the United Kingdom and can be reached via sihledube@hotmail.co.uk
Labels: LUCIA MATIBENGA, MDC FACTIONS, MORGAN TSVANGIRAI, PRESIDENCY
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