Source: Mujuru in Catch-22 situation – DailyNews Live
Blessings Mashaya 12 July 2017
HARARE – National People’s Party (NPP) leader Joice Mujuru is caught
between joining a conglomeration of smaller parties under Coalition of
Democrats (Code) or concentrate on covering ground under a pact signed
with MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai.
Mujuru’s spokesperson Gift Nyandoro said the NPP was still consulting,
insisting she was committed to “collective leadership”.
“The party is still going on with consultative process, we are consulting
the necessary party structures and at grassroots level.
“The process is underway, we are doing it as a coalition process which is
bigger than Code signing,” Nyandoro told the Daily News yesterday.
Tsvangirai, 65, who was Zimbabwe’s prime minister in an uneasy coalition
government with Mugabe from 2009 until 2013, and Mujuru, who was the
nonagenarian’s vice president for a decade until she was fired in 2014,
are engaged in talks to form a grand coalition which is expected to
contest next year’s elections as a single bloc.
Analysts have said a united opposition stands the best chance of defeating
Mugabe and Zanu PF in the much-awaited polls due next year.
Tsvangirai, a three-time “loser” to Mugabe, has also inked similar deals
to the one with Mujuru with Welshman Ncube and Jacob Ngarivhume.
“A lot is taking place behind the scenes between us the NPP and MDC. We
are aware of some conspiracy theories, which are aiming at poisoning our
relationship with MDC.
“We were equally happy with Tsvangirai when he signed an agreement with
(Welshman) Ncube.
“We need each other, we need Tsvangirai, Simba Makoni, Tendai Biti and
others; we need to find each other,” said Nyandoro.
Mujuru was expected to sign a pact with Code last week but changed her
mind at the last minute because she was not impressed with the venue of
the signing ceremony.
The signing ceremony was set for the Renewal Democrats of Zimbabwe (RDZ)
offices in Harare instead of the originally-planned Anglican Cathedral.
Mujuru reportedly did not want to create an impression that she had been
absorbed as a political outfit by RDZ as what happened to her when she
signed the memorandum of understanding with Tsvangirai at his Highlands
home.
There is a consensus among the country’s political observers that an
electoral pact that involves Tsvangirai and Mujuru stands a chance of
ending Mugabe’s 37-year rule.
Fitting smugly into the straitjacket philosophy – that is venerated by the
country’s influential military – Mujuru boasts of liberation war
credentials that have thus far been Tsvangirai’s Achilles heel, and is
regarded as an alternative because of her historical ties and also links
to key government departments.
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