WASHINGTON DC — MDC leader Welshman Ncube says the opposition in Zimbabwe should form a formidable coalition that will unseat President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party in 2018.
In an exclusive interview, Ncube, whose party failed to get a single seat in the last general election, said a democrat should lead the 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.
Ncube, who has been silent following the 2013 July 31 general election, dismissed calls by MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai to join his party saying the former trade unionist “is running a big tent full of undemocratic principles”.
“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.”
Ncube noted Tsvangirai is not in a position to lead a coalition opposed to Mugabe’s rule.
“The identity of that candidate (for the coalition), the name of that candidate matters not.
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“What matters is that candidate must be an undoubted democrat. I regret to say I do not classify Tsvangirai in that category.”
Ncube also dismissed as frivolous allegations that he destroyed the original MDC when he pulled out of the party, citing what he called the flagrant violation of its constitution by Tsvangirai and a small group of senior officials aligned to him who wanted to have a tight control of all party matters.
But the MDC-T says Tsvangirai is capable of leading the coalition and defeating Mugabe in the next polls.
Ncube was the secretary-general of the MDC before it split in 2005 following disagreements over participation in senate elections and other party issues. – VOA
