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Zimbabwe's Grand coalition talks gather momentum

by Staff reporter
28 Aug 2014 at 08:57hrs | Views
TALKS to form a grand coalition among the country's main opposition parties are steadily gathering momentum.

Opposition leaders are meeting regularly to browbeat underlying differences before making a major announcement on the formation of a grand coalition to challenge President Robert Mugabe who has been in power since independence in 1980.

Political observers are of the view that a grand coalition is the closest thing that could help mount a formidable challenge to President Mugabe's Zanu-PF, instead of numerous but weak individual efforts that are unlikely to cause a dent on the ruling party. The opposition is currently fragmented, and has been struggling to recover from the defeat of last year's election.

According to the Financial Gazette, opposition parties warming up to the grand coalition include the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) led by Welshman Ncube, the splinter MDC Renewal Team led by Samuel Sipepa Nkomo, ZAPU led by Dumiso Dabengwa, Mavambo/Kusile/Dawn (MKD) led by Simba Makoni and the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) which has as its interim leader, Lovemore Madhuku.

Talks, however, exclude the MDC-T party which is led by Morgan Tsvangirai.  Meetings, according to sources, are being held on a weekly basis with the intention of having the grand coalition up and running as soon as possible. Those behind the project want to capitalise on Zimbabwe's mounting economic challenges in order to put pressure on President Mugabe.

"They (opposition leaders) are holding meetings every week and the last meeting that was held was a week and half ago. The leadership of the NCA, the MDC led by Ncube, ZAPU, MKD and the MDC Renewal Team were all in attendance and there is agreement on the majority of issues," said the source.

"The only sticking point at the moment, which leaders have agreed to go back and consult with their members on is the key question of whether to broaden the grand coalition beyond political parties and include other democratic forces such as civic society group." It is also understood that renewed efforts to put together a grand coalition which excludes Tsvangirai have not gone down well with the former trade unionist.

This partly explains why the MDC-T leader is making a fresh bid to bury the hatchet with his former lieutenants in the MDC Renewal Team.
Tsvangirai, who has led the country's largest opposition party since its formation in 1999, gave the rebels up to end of August to either return to his mainstream MDC-T or surrender any prospects of landing leadership positions at the party's October congress.

"Consistent with our traditional policy of magnanimity as a democratic party we have offered an olive branch to members without exception who feel the wish to come back and renew their commitment to re-joining the party and the struggle, the executive resolved that the party would open the window until the end of August for our colleagues who for whatever reason might have been misled," Tsvangirai told journalists.

In turn, the MDC Renewal Team has rejected the latest overtures from Tsvangirai, dashing any likelihood that there would be the possibility of co-operation with the main MDC-T formation in the mooted grand coalition. Jacob Mafume, the spokesperson of the MDC Renewal Team, confirmed that there was "significant progress" which had been made in the efforts to put together a grand coalition.  "We are making significant progress…there are certain documents which have been drafted and all the parties are working together well," Mafume said.

Asked for a comment on the grand coalition, Nhlanhla Dube, the spokesperson for the Ncube-led MDC downplayed the ongoing conversations around a coalition of democrats which he said were still "informal" and its leadership was reaching out to all the actors within the broad base of civil society, churches, labour, students, professionals, diaspora and political parties. "Informally, Ncube has met a plethora of the aforementioned actors and stakeholders…informal conversations continue. There is no suggestion of stalling (in the talks) because in any case there is no set timescale," said Dube.

Makoni, however, said it was important for the people of Zimbabwe to work together to deal with the problems caused by Zanu-PF. "This is a call for all leaders, that the problems confronting us are beyond one entity and go beyond one party," said Makoni.

Source - fingaz