COALITION! A POSSIBILITY

MDC-T leader and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has again called on rivals Welshman Ncube and Dumiso Dabengwa to join him in a broader coalition against President Robert Mugabe and his Zanu PF party. Tsvangirai made the call as he presented Mavambo Kusile leader and former Zanu PF politburo member Simba Makoni to thousands of supporters during a campaign rally at Rusape’s Vengere Stadium on Monday.

Said the MDC-T leader: “I was mandated by the standing committee to seek a grand coalition with all the major parties to make sure we rally behind one Presidential candidate.

"There is no need to split the vote when our common objective is to achieve real change and build a New Zimbabwe. “In the national interest, I carried out that mandate and managed to form a coalition with Dr Simba Makoni's MKD party and ZANU Ndonga.

"As such, we are sponsoring Dr Makoni for the Makoni Central constituency and ZANU Ndonga's Reketai Semwayo in Chipinge Central. “The door is still open to other parties we were negotiating with to join the coalition in the broader national interest. We need unity of purpose among all the major parties to achieve a New Zimbabwe."

Tsvangirai made similar pleas at a campaign stop in Gweru on Sunday saying: “If Ncube and Dabengwa really want to change the lives of Zimbabwean, they should join hands with us and help unseat Mugabe.” The MDC-T leader formed an alliance with Makoni and a Zanu Ndonga official after reported talks towards a broader coalition involving Ncube’s MDC formation and Dabengwa’s ZAPU collapsed. But with a week to go before the key vote, an alliance with Ncube appears virtually impossible, in part because of the bitterness the formation still feels about the way Tsvangirai treated them over the last few years.

“Look at how they treated us after our congress [in 2009],” Ncube said in a recent interview with the Daily News. “Morgan and his team were saying the leader of the MDC is Arthur Mutambara; there is no other, they will work with him until the courts have determined. And we are saying the courts still have not determined. “So if Mutambara is the leader of the MDC, go and form a coalition with him, I’m sure he’s willing to do that. Tsvangirai has been in coalition against us for the last two-and-half years. “(Again) We disagree on just about everything [with Tsvangirai]. We, as a party, say there is no situation which can justify the use of violence as an instrument of political organisation. We believe in collective democratic decision-making processes.

“I, as the president, cannot overrule the collective decisions either of the Standing Committee, the National Executive or the National Council. And there are so many things. “The only thing which is in common is that once-upon-a-time we were in the same party. We drifted apart and eventually split because we realised that whereas we will say the same things, we will practice different things. Meanwhile, the MDC-T leader will this week head into the heartland of Mugabe's support as he winds up his campaign for the July 31 vote. Days after drawing huge crowds in his traditional stronghold Bulawayo and the swing Midlands Province, Tsvangirai's foray into Mashonaland East will test the level of inroads he has made in what is seen as Mugabe backyard. On Tuesday, Tsvangirai addresses rallies in Kotwa, Murehwa and Mutoko. He wades into Zaire, Hwedza and Mahusekwa. Mashonaland East is one of the three Mashonaland provinces which have remained loyal to Mugabe and his Zanu PF party in previous elections. These are the same provinces which suffered the worst of the 2008 election violence which Tsvangirai says claimed more than 200 of his supporters and displaced thousands of others. Like many other areas countrywide, the provinces have not recorded serious cases of violence in this campaign, although rights groups claim Zanu PF is using memories of the 2008 clampdown to induce fear among voters.