Zanu PF rules out Tsvangirai talks

via Zanu PF rules out Tsvangirai talks 27 July 2014

PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu PF has emphatically turned down calls for national dialogue by its MDC-T rivals with party deputy spokesperson Psychology Maziwisa insisting the former coalition partner was playing the dialogue card to return to government via dubious means.

Ex-premier Morgan Tsvangirai has been addressing rallies countrywide emphasising the need for the generality of Zimbabweans to meet in their various groups and offer solutions to their socio-economic troubles.

The MDC-T leader weekend took his message to Chatham House in London where he insisted the broader Zimbabwean society needed to be offered a chance to openly discuss their worries.

“The people of Zimbabwe ought to be encouraged to discuss their national predicament and hammer out what needs to be done to extricate the country from this man-made quagmire,” Tsvangirai said.

“Put simply, the domestic solution is unconditional dialogue by a broad section of Zimbabweans to unpack the crisis and chart the way forward.”

But Zanu PF’s Maziwisa said this was far from Zanu PF’s immediate priorities.

“We won elections on July 31 last year and we are the government of the day until 2018; we have no intention of relinquishing any power to an election loser.”

The MDC-T lost its parliamentary majority in watershed but disputed July 31, 2013 polls that saw the coalition partner elbowed out of government by a triumphant Zanu PF.

The opposition party says the current economic slide manifesting itself through continued company closures and government bankruptcy seen through current uncertainties over pay dates for civil servants were enough signs Zanu PF has failed.

The MDC-T further urges the Zanu PF-led government to swallow its pride and admit failure, a situation that would pave way for the much desired concerted intervention to the country’s teething problems.

Biti says Zanu PF could keep its security ministries if it so wished but must surrender the running of the country’s economy to technocrats who will operate independent of state interference.

But Maziwisa said: “These are machinations and dubious means being played out by the MDC of trying to get into government through the back door.”

He added: “Whilst we might agree that our economy is not the best in the world at the moment, we certainly do not agree with the MDC on the reason why we are in the situation that we are in today.

“That the present day government lakes capacity, that is not true, l think anybody who says that is obviously suffering from short memory.”

The youthful Zanu PF spokesperson further said the MDC-T was insincere in advocating national dialogue when it was clandestinely campaigning for more sanctions against President Mugabe’s government.

“All of us have seen the MDC-T break up on more than one occasion; if they were the experts that they claim to be at dialogue, they definitely ought to have averted that split.”

Maziwisa said his boss Rugare Gumbo was misquoted by the local press when he reportedly admitted Zanu PF was open to dialogue but only if Tsvangirai recognised Mugabe’s legitimacy.

MDC-T spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora said there was nothing strange about dialoguing adding that the country’s liberation war was fought in the bush but was ended via talks by the belligerent parties.

“Whenever in history Zimbabweans have attempted to dialogue, it has produced positive results. If you look at the war of independence which ended in 1980, it did not end in the battle-field, it ended with a dialogue.
“That dialogue produced a cease fire and that cease fire culminated in independence.”

Mwonzora insisted the MDC-T still had a big say on how the country was being governed as it had more than 90 MPs in parliament, claims Maziwisa vehemently dismissed.