Source: Mujuru dithers on opposition coalition – DailyNews Live
Fungi Kwaramba and Tendai Kamhungira 25 March 2017
HARARE – Some small opposition parties, including former Vice President
Joice Mujuru’s National People’s Party (NPP), are not yet ready to endorse
MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai as the leader of the country’s mooted
opposition alliance ahead of next year’s much-anticipated national
elections.
This comes as Tsvangirai has in recent weeks received ringing endorsements
from a large cross-section of the opposition to lead the proposed
coalition against President Robert Mugabe and his warring ruling Zanu PF.
The NPP said this week that it had “deferred” the question of who should
lead the planned coalition to party supporters, in a move which analysts
say is “another miscalculation” by the fledgling new kid on the political
block.
“The sentiment that progressive forces should form a grand coalition is
not in dispute, but the practical way of coming up with it has to be done
by the party membership at the national convention.
“You are aware that we do not have a substantive leadership and what we
are doing now is seeking to come up with that because time is running out.
“We must first have a team that can negotiate,” Mujuru’s spokesperson,
Gift Nyandoro, told the Daily News on Thursday.
“As the NPP, we are going to our convention to choose legitimate
leadership . . . This will also inform us on how we are going to approach
the coalition.
“Thus, the question of who would lead the coalition is a matter that will
be resolved by the party membership.
“But we definitely want a grand coalition to unseat Zanu PF but that
should be done in a proper way,” Nyandoro added.
This also comes as Mujuru’s absence at the National Electoral Reform
Agenda’s (Nera’s) rally in Harare on Wednesday – where opposition parties
demonstrated against the government’s hijacking of the country’s quests to
procure biometric voter registration (BVR) kits – raised eyebrows.
Because of this and other developments of the past few weeks, question
marks are increasingly being raised about her role in the proposed
coalition, particularly as she has also had a nasty public fallout with
Zimbabwe People First (ZPF) elders Rugare Gumbo and Didymus Mutasa who are
playing a leading role in Nera.
Recently, Mutasa cast doubts about Mujuru’s capacity to lead the mooted
opposition coalition, while praising Tsvangirai profusely and noting that
the popular opposition leader had persevered against all odds in his push
for a more democratic Zimbabwe.
“For me, Tsvangirai is the natural leader of the coalition because of who
he is . . . What the National Electoral Reform Agenda is today stands for
what Tsvangirai and the MDC built. The rest of us are latecomers in this
game,” Mutasa told the Daily News last week.
“As a party, we cannot accept a situation where Mujuru leads the coalition
having proved her lack of capacity with ZPF, although she is welcome to be
part of the coalition because we need everyone,” he added.
Other small, lesser-known parties, especially some of those operating
within the Coalition for Democrats (Code), also appear to be against
Tsvangirai leading the mooted coalition.
But Code chairperson Farai Mbira has said that the group is making strides
to engage those political parties that are outside their membership to
deliberate on the mooted coalition.
“We have not settled on the presidential candidate but will do so when we
have completed our engagements with all partners and potentials.
“Settling on a presidential candidate is not going to be difficult as each
leader in Code has accepted that someone else could be chosen and none has
given any conditionality,” Mbira said.
However, there have been growing calls in recent weeks from a large cross
section of Zimbabweans, including opposition ranks, students and civic
society for Tsvangirai to lead the grand coalition.
Apart from Mutasa, former Finance minister and leader of Mavambo/Kusile
Dawn, Simba Makoni, has also thrown his weight behind the dogged former
labour union leader.
“I am on record saying we need everyone, and in the case of Tsvangirai, we
all know the value that he adds, having been in the opposition trenches
this long.
“He is a respected leader with popularity and I only hope that other
leaders in Code realise that and will also want to have him,” Makoni told
the Daily News last week.
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