MDC leader Welshman Ncube says he does not hate MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai, but finds it difficult to work with the former trade unionist because of his dictatorial tendencies.
NDUDUZO TSHUMA/ NJABULO NCUBE
Tsvangirai has been on a charm offensive inviting back members of the united once MDC that saw politicians such as Job Sikhala re-joining the MDC-T.
However, Ncube told Southern Eye in an interview on Friday that he was not willing to join the chaos in the party that has seen the assault and expulsion of members, top among them former deputy national treasurer Elton Mangoma.
Asked if Tsvangirai had ever approached him to consider re-joining him, Ncube said, “Not once, not by phone, not personally, not by an emissary, not once.
“I have only read about it in the media. He certainly has not approached me and I think for good reasons.
“Some of us don’t play grandstanding games. You want to persuade a woman to marry you and you are saying come, even your old wife who divorced you , come let’s come together and live happily ever after. In the meantime you have opened your doors and everybody can see day in day you are assaulting your wife and wives who are in that house,” Ncube said.
“But you are saying sweetie come back, let’s live happily ever after. You need to be a fool if not an absolute idiot to say this husband is busy battering his wives with red eyes every day, screams all night and in the meantime says come to my big house and we can have a big house. Come on! Unless we are all fools who will be taken by that nonsense, absolute nonsense.
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“You are beating up people, you are insulting people, you are actually starting a whole programme of rallies in order to denounce people and then you say let the founding people come in. No one can come and talk to me and say I should join that circus.”
Ncube said he has nothing against Tsvangirai, but they differed on ideology.
“I spent more than five years of my life as the secretary of the united MDC. I can assure you that 50% of my job and the job of all the other members in leadership during that whole period was made up of protecting the brand of the party and the brand of the name Tsvangirai,” he said.
“I actually chuckle and get amused when I read in the media the (MDC-Team spokesperson Jacob)Mafume and the others saying the things they are saying about Morgan today. They knew those things since 2005. We have known them since day one. We devoted a great deal of our time from 2 000 up to the split in actually trying – and believe me – to create a good brand out of the name Tsvangirai notwithstanding the numerous imperfections that were self-evident.
“Don’t think that it is a coincidence that everyone who has worked closely with Morgan doesn’t think he is a hero, those that have not worked with him think he is.
“It’s nothing personal, it is simply that the person of Morgan Tsvangirai has not in practice again and again, not measured to the ideal of the democratic movement we started in 1999.”
Ncube said because there is a “bigger monster in the person of Mugabe then, lots of people think we should ignore this. Personally I think it is irresponsible to promise people what we know in our hearts will be a false revolution.
“I have always said my conscience is my master, abuse me the way you want, denigrate me the way you want, label me in any way you want, but I will never act contrary to my conscience. So what stops us from working with Tsvangirai is that we know for a fact that he cannot hold up to the ideals of the democratic struggle,” he said.
“We know for a fact that if we were to put him into State House, all you would have done is just laid the foundations for another democratic struggle . . . it is not a coincidence that it is those who have worked with him, the Tendai Bitis, the Elton Mangomas the Mafume name them, if you go to 2005, those of us who said enough is enough, who know for a fact, we cannot be complicit in reposing confidence in persons we know that confidence will be misplaced.”
Ncube said he had taken a lot of flake on the Tsvangirai issue, “but I can never act contrary to my conscience. I must be able to live with myself and acting contrary to my conscience means I can’t live with myself.”
