via GNU 2 talks: We are wiser, says Tsvangirai 20 July 2014
MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai has assured supporters he will not be conned again by President Robert Mugabe as he presses for new talks to help right the country’s failing economy.
The former premier has told Mugabe to organise a new round of negotiations on the way forward, accusing the veteran leader and his party of failing to take the country out of its seemingly unending economic mire.
“Mugabe should be pushed out of power not to wait for a miracle to happen,” Tsvangirai told supporters at a weekend rally in Bulawayo.
“He should know that he has no legitimacy. Zanu PF has already reached the dead end. Where will they go?”
The ruling party said it was open to talks on condition Tsvangirai accepts he was defeated fair and square in the 2013 vote which the MDC-T has dismissed as a monumental fraud.
Tsvangirai was handed an ineffectual prime minister’s position when he agreed to form a coalition government with Mugabe and his Zanu PF party after the violent but inconclusive 2008 elections.
He was readily told to stop imagining or pretending that he was the head of government while ministers from Zanu PF side of the coalition pretty much gave him little regard throughout the tenure of the fractious administration.
And to drive the point home, the vast State media apparatus was instructed to every day remind Tsvangirai of his reduced situation by prefacing any reference to Mugabe with the title ‘Head of state and government as well as commander in chief of the Zimbabwe defence forces’.
So burdened with minimal responsibilities and virtually no authority, Tsvangirai was also unable to push through reforms he needed to ensure credible future elections.
Even so, critics say he also took his eye of the ball, sated to distraction by the spoils of being in government.
Never again, the MDC-T leader however, assured supporters in Bulawayo at the weekend.
“They (Zanu PF) are now saying let’s talk. If they come now, we are a little bit cleverer; we will start by dismantling their hegemony and then form a government,” he said.
“Last time I think we were a bit foolish by going into a GNU (government of nation unity) without destroying this hegemony. However we have learnt from our mistakes.”
Meanwhile, the opposition leader, battling to keep a firm hold on power following another damaging split in the MDC, travels to the UK this week to meet supporters as well as raise funds for a congress scheduled for October.
He will also try to reassure allies in the West that he remains the leading opposition voice in Zimbabwe at an event organised by the Royal Institute of International Affairs, commonly known as Chatham House.
The former premier is expected to “reflect on recent developments within MDC-T, the importance of strengthening opposition politics for Zimbabwe’s future and the role that international partners can play in Zimbabwe’s democratic progress.”
Former financial supporters in the West, frustrated with Tsvangirai’s failure to topple Mugabe over the last 15 years, have reportedly switched their backing to the rival MDC Renewal Team.
COMMENTS
Mre thinks Tsvancry is now history, easily overtaken by events and the political genius of Mugarbage. We had high hopes but the level of ‘blundering’ displayed by MDC-T in the last election removed any doubt I had about the man. Thus far he took us – no more please. Solution – another will arise as sure as Tsvancry rose!
Tsvangirai seems to think that history starts in the morning. THE TRUTH is that he was warned many times and given top level advice from the best but he thought he knew best and the failures we see today are as a result of his blinkered stupidity.
He is not fit to be a leader. He is an idiot and a failure. He should be left out to live ther rest of his life in his zanu mansion with his zanu wife…. if she is still around.
When will Tsvangirai learn. Mugabe is not for reasoning with. He is determined to run this country into the ground because as he and all his supporters say…”HE FOUGHT FOR IT”.
where is gamatox when we need it? A tiny bit in Bob’s cake is what we need, hoping of course that he shares it with Epidydimis Mutasa and the whole bunch of crooks!!!
Poor Morgan Tsvangirai….GNU-2 a pipe dream…it will never,never happen poor Morgan…..chance comes once…….no more Mauritius honeymoon with Chilumbane(South Africa)……
GU2 GNU3??
When will this buffoon learn. He is not up to the task and must accept that. He says he has learnt from his mistakes, rubbish, he has kept making mistakes and not learnt a thing since 1998.
He is acting like a dictator and has shown his true colours by having his critic’s beaten up. We do not need this idiot in office or as our president.
Like the donors, my support is for the renewal team though I wish they would start a new movement with no affiliation in name to the MDC.
MDC = Morgan Don’t ( will not ) Change and he has shown us many times that he is not capable of change. He clearly fears loosing support and life style which is why he has to travel to the UK to find funding.
Moyokumusha to hell with you. Go and hang and fast!
You know when the GNU was signed many of us supported Morgan and we thought this was a way out of this terrible mess, but we and Morgan underestimated the foul stinking dishonesty of zpf and the depth to which they would go to use the chinese and nikuv to cheat their way back into this sesspool of evil. Morgan has actually won at least the last four elections but been trounced by the powers of evil in dark places.
I will stand by Morgan as he has personally done all he could to get this country back and has suffered the consequences in trying to deal honestly with a bunch of cheating murdering gangsters.
His little woman problems are not my concern and we need to understand that it is the face of Africa and there is almost a custom of promiscuity, so people must get over it and lets focus on the real enemy of the people…mugabe and zpf.
Wrong at the time those of us who were not desperate for a well paid government position would have insisted on a split of the security portfolios (Police and Army) and for a complete change of personel at the ZEC. We would also have insisted on retirement for the compromised people in the police and army.
Has he just had a brain implant? Whats new Tsvangirai? MDC has not changed , Zanu has not changed . We want to try the same thing over and over again. Only fools will be taken in by these clueless lot.
Whats the other option? Ian is dead.
Let zanu die even if it means more suffering,, what more cam happen that people have camnot survive,, no let the country crumble under zanu,, we will start over,morgen never learns
And then what? The ensuing shambles which will produce another zpf dictator?!
Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. That is called stupidity. How do you Morgan expect ZANU to agree to dismantling it’s stranglehold on power, the army CIO Chihure? You are hallucinating. Only fools will believe you. You are getting old and just looking for an opportunity to retire well into a Government pension and to benefit while the people get nothing out of it. DONT help ZANU PF again. Let it be destroyed by the economy.
Well, that’s quite a chorus of opinion against Morgan, excepting the Reverend, of course.
So, the time of talking to ZANU is over?
What does one do then?
The Zimbo hasn’t got in him to go out there and fight for what is his.
Nah, the vaPostori and WOZA have more guts than this yellow-bellied creature.
Criticising those who are trying to bring about change is all he is good at.
The evil perpetrated by ZANU on the MDC and Zimbabwean people is unimaginable, yet Morgan doesn’t give up the fight.
Some would call it stupidity, I call that staying power.
I think there should be no GNU of whatever form. It just delays freedom for the people. What should happen is that there should be fresh credible elections monitored or conducted by an independent body like the UN. ZEC cannot be trusted with anything.
A GNU just serves the leaders and not the people and it helps Zanu PF more than anybody else however ‘clever’ you become.
A free and fair election will decide the leaders the people want whereas a GNU will just help Zanu PF recover.
I hope that the MDC and everybody else will resist the GNU and insist on early elections instead.
GNU2 will be better than what we now have, but will not fix the real underlying problems. ZANU will still rig the next elect no matter what. Mugabe needs to go. This is the real priority. Without Mugabe ZANU is nothing. That is why they cling to him.
If there was an election, who would you all vote for..Ncube!? Biti!? or go with Morgan who may not have a lot of brain but good Lord he has the guts and the following to do it and with a lot of prayer and support behind him he can pull it off, and then maybe stay one term.
Joining hands with the people’s devils at this time is not a good idea, we will be fulfilling their dreams of ticks to suck blood until they die with no single benefit to the host, MDC should focus on a working fomula to revive the economy while the gangsters mess themselves in the hell they created
Way Forward:
We have a government in ZPF and a president in Bob. Taria unzwe kutonga muhofisi umo. Every country goes thru its problems- and Zim is no exception. If Tsvangison wants to negotiate he should go into parliament and discuss with other MPs. Otherwise they told us the same thing at GNU1- ‘billions are coming if we are in there; our donors will back us etc, etc’. Yet it never came to pass- now they are promising pie in the sky again. Forget it. Next election- 2018, come rain come shine!
This is a perenial problem for Zimbabwe ,recycling useless people. Tsvangiruza has shown us he is useless to bring democracy to us .Time for him to exit ,he has dissapointed us long enough.Always manouvred by zpf…ngwarai!
GNU2, First demand, Mugabe must retire and anyone more than 75 years not welcome in the new government.
What an arsehole!
To take Zanu pf head on is the toughest thing that all Zimbabweans have dismally failed over the 34 years. Remember, it is only Tsvangirai who has indeed managed to defeat Zanu pf out right once. But was it his fault that power was not subsequently presented to him?
You got that right Ndaneta ndaneta.
People should not lose sight of that one.
Only fools do not learn. Who of us has never made a mistake and feel that next time he/she will do better. Mistakes and learning from them is part of daily human life. Its best to know where you faulted and correct or even advise others to not repeat the same mistake. MDC T learnt from ZAPU PF that they will not be swallowed by ZANU PF and sure they were not. They faulted by not destroying the military apparatus of ZANU PF and this time they may get it right. The challenge is whether ZANU PF will succumb to that pressure instead of maintaining the status quo. However if they will refuse, MDC T have made it clear that they will be not part of it.
Dialogue is coming now everyone wants to claim initiating it!!!! NO preconditions, enough is enough…..
Whats happened to ZUNDE, very quiet lately.
why not all parties opposed to Zaniodism and Mugarbage get to getther and hammer out a stratergy for going forward instead of all this posturing its getting us nowhere.
come on guys ZIMBABWE FIRST then you can take the prizes.
What a fool – even if you are helped out of the same pit you have been falling into a million times; you will never wisen up to know you should not go near.
You love teas with Mugabe and his attention so much that, you are like a fly that keeps following a dead body right into the grave and gets buried with it.
A typical intellectual midget for sure!!
@Reader
Please spare us that tribalistic nonsense ZUNDE. An ALL-SHONA outfit that does even make a token attempt to reflect the population composition of Zimbabwe,except for one Culverwell who is coloured – what a shame.
How on earth can a people who claim they want to see a new progressive Zimbabwe insist on forgeting the past and look to the future?
If you forget the past, then how are you going to correct the past mistakes to ensure these are not repeated in the future?
People who seek to bury the past under the carpet are typical gukurahundi ZANU PF in their nature. This is why today we cant even commemorate the death our gukurahundi victims without risking arrest because of this gukurahundi ZANU PF mentality that seeks to ignore the past.
I for one will never be a part of this ZUNDE rubbish. The past is there for us to draw lessons that should assist us in crafting our past that seeks to avoid the mistakes of our past. That is why we have HISTORY.
The wise ones who went before us said:
“THOSE WHO CAN NOT LEARN FROM HISTORY, ARE BOUND TO RE-LIVE IT”.
It is obvious you can not learn anything from history if you pretend it doesnt exist!!
What a fool – even if you are helped out of the same pit you have been falling into a million times; you will never wisen up to know you should not go near.
You love teas with Mugabe and his attention so much that, you are like a fly that keeps following a dead body right into the grave and gets buried with it.
A typical intellectual midget for sure!!
I say Biti for President, Bennett for VP!
That should even up the parties, and their
respective lieutenants will follow, forming a
workable new Zimbabwe.
Of course Mangoma and Ncube must be included!
Except for Bennett, all a discredited bunch.
There must be no more talks with ZANU PF anymore. Let the melting economy hang them, no bail for the regime.
GNU was a great mistake the opposition ever did in its quest to freedom the regime could now be the thing of the past had the opposition refused the so called GNU by Mbeki and his Sadc.
No unity with them untill the economy drives them out of power.