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Harare Bureau
THE MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai does not have capacity to head a united front of opposition parties seeking to remove Zanu-PF and President Mugabe from power, MDC leader Professor Welshman Ncube has said.
Prof Ncube, speaking to the Voice of America, said the opposition would only defeat the revolutionary party if they formed a formidable united front.
However, he said Tsvangirai did not have the wherewithal to lead such a coalition.
“I have no doubt that if we are able to put forward a candidate as opposition, a candidate of a united front, that candidate would win the next election in Zimbabwe,” he said.
“The identity of that candidate (for the coalition), the name of that candidate matters not. What matters is that that candidate must be an undoubted democrat. I regret to say I do not classify Tsvangirai in that category,” he said.
Prof Ncube described his political opponent and MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai as undemocratic, insisting his party would not join the outfit as it was characterised by violence and dictatorship.
Tsvangirai has been on a countrywide tour to drum up support following calls by senior party officials under the tag MDC Team Renewal for him to step down for fanning violence, being undemocratic as well as failing to defeat President Mugabe for six consecutive occasions.
“You cannot invite people to a big tent. It doesn’t matter how big it is if it is a rotten tent. As long as it is a tent which stinks to high heaven with dictatorship, violence, violation of everything that we stood for against Mugabe, it can be big as you want it . . . it can contain millions of people, it’s not worth the numbers that it has,” he said.
“I have absolutely no respect and I am absolutely not impressed by the big tent politics which has no conception of what the struggle against Mugabe is.”
Prof Ncube was the secretary-general of the MDC before it split in 2005 following disagreements over participation in Senate elections and other party issues that included Tsvangirai’s dictatorial tendencies and use of violence to silence critics.
A number of officials then, that include Priscillah Misihairabwi-Mushonga, Edwin Mushoriwa and former Director of Security Peter Guhu were assaulted by youths loyal to Tsvangirai.
Last month the MDC-T’s former deputy treasurer general, Elton Mangoma, was assaulted outside Harvest House after he had written to Tsvangirai asking him to step down.
His calls for the embattled MDC-T leader to relinquish power ultimately led to his dismissal from the party together with former Youth Assembly secretary general, Promise Mkwananzi, national executive member Last Maengahama and Jacob Mafume .
The three have, however, scoffed at their expulsion describing it as a legal nullity.
Online Reporter