'Newsday portraying Morgan Tsvangirai as a dictator'

The Movement for Democratic Change on Tuesday said the NewsDay newspaper has been publishing false stories about its leader Morgan Tsvangirai in a bid to "portray Morgan Tsvangirai as a dictator and as a party leader under siege."

Tsvangirai's spokesperson Luke Tamborinyoka said "the mission is a well-orchestrated media crusade to attack the Morgan Tsvangirai brand."

Read full statement below:

Today's three separate stories in your newspaper attacking the same man leave no one under any doubt that the mission is a well-orchestrated media crusade to attack the Morgan Tsvangirai brand.

Your lead-story, Tsvangirai seeing shadows, is yet another build-up on a false story you published a week ago alleging that President Morgan Tsvangirai had said there are people in the party wishing to remove him from his position as party President.

For the record, President Tsvangirai never made any reference to the so-called internal plot to remove him because there is no such plot as he only received a new mandate at congress last October.

While in Chitungwiza, he never made any reference to the internal plots as you reported last week in a false story on which you are building up the lies against Tsvangirai.

It is curious that in the three stories, Tsvangirai's voice is missing as demanded by the dictates of ethical journalism but your newspaper continues to publish highly malicious stories without the input of the intended target of your journalism.

All three stories are meant to portray Morgan Tsvangirai as a dictator and as a party leader under siege.

Curiously, your other story is based on the rantings of one Maxwell Shumba, who is purportedly speaking on behalf of the MDC when he is not the party spokesperson. He is rambling the fiction of an imagined dispute with people who are still to form their own party. Surely, how can there be a dispute over a party name with people who are still to form their own party?

Your stories, particularly those that are written by former party members are cause for concern as they continue to push suspicious agendas. For a former party member who ran in the internal MDC primary elections cannot masquerade as an objective journalist as he has his own grievances because he was unsuccessful in the internal elections.

For the record, the Morgan Tsvangirai brand is too big to be destroyed by media houses with an agenda. For a credible publication to write three separate stories in one issue, all attacking the integrity of one man but without giving him his right of reply, can only betray a malicious agenda.

Luke Tamborinyoka
Presidential Spokesperson and Director of Communications
Movement for Democratic Change