Tsvangirai optimistic coalition will be strong enough to defeat Zanu-PF

MDC-T leader, Morgan Tsvangirai has expressed optimism that the planned coalition with other opposition parties will be strong enough to defeat Zanu-PF next year.

Tsvangirai signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with NPP leader and former Vice-President Joice Mujuru and MDC leader, Welshman Ncube, the first building blocks towards the setting up of an opposition coalition ahead of the 2018 elections.

Tsvangirai, through his spokesperson, Luke Tamborinyoka said the MoUs will formally open discussions of how the parties will work together.

He said it was wiser for the opposition to form a coalition that is likely to garner enough votes to remove Zanu-PF.

"We are heartened by the fact that Zimbabweans have largely welcomed the emerging convergence even though there have been several requests from both the media and the generality of the people," Tamborinyoka said in a statement.

"The inquiries are ranging from requests of copies of the MoUs to inquiries on whether president Tsvangirai is in talks with this or that other political leader or institution."

Tsvangirai said once the on-going engagement with current and other potential partners reaches substantive levels, they will then inform their supporters on how they will work.

However, Norton MP Temba Mliswa tore into the envisaged coalition between MDC-T, NPP and MDC, describing it as a clear lack of tact on Tsvangirai's part.

"For me, I think the opposition has lost strategy. The biggest opposition remains in Zanu-PF and that is the infighting, the biggest opposition is internal. There is no coalition or alliance, which will ever work before elections," he said.

"I always get surprised, for example, Tendai Biti's party is stronger than Mujuru's in terms of structures, but I am equally more powerful in terms of opposition parties. I am in Parliament and they are not, so why are you talking to people who are not in Parliament. This is a joke."

Mliswa added: "I am more powerful than them if you calculate my votes in Hurungwe West and Norton. These political parties do not even have a single vote. Power is shown inside Parliament and that is when you control things."

He said Tsvangirai was better off going into 2018 harmonised elections by himself and contesting the first round and then, if need be, seek coalition partners for the run off.

Mliswa said there were a number of MDC-T loyalists, who are not comfortable working with Mujuru because of her Zanu-PF links.

He said Zanu-PF had a bad record, particularly on electoral fraud and election related violence, hence, victims of such will see no reason voting for the coalition.

"The aspect of violence is so serious and don't play with people's emotions on that. There are people who died and some will say you are bringing a person formerly with Zanu-PF, where people were killed. Let the Zanu-PF people go on their own and let the MDC people go on their own," he said.