Tsvangirai still enjoys popular support

EDITOR

After silencing renegades who label themselves as the Renewal Team, it is clear that Morgan Tsvangirai has won this battle and will in due course assume presidency.

It has never been questionable that Morgan Tsvangirai enjoys popular support in Zimbabwe.

The Renewal Team had portrayed Tsvangirai as someone who was illegitimately remaining at the helm of the party and therefore had to go by all means necessary.

Thanks to the quick reaction of all those people that chose to remain loyal to their party president.

The de-branding of the Morgan Tsvangirai brand  has really failed and the greatest undoing of the  Renewal Team was their ill-conceived and ill-planned focus on assassinating Tsvangirai's character .

That many detractors have failed to de-brand Morgan Tsvangirai goes on to show how big the brand has become.

The sacrifice he has made and the amount of harassment, intimidation and personal losses that Tsvangirai has gone through has cemented his place in the hearts of many Zimbabweans.

The Renewal Team has also been heavily undone by its officials who are fronting this campaign as they have shown beyond anyone‘s doubt that they are not cut to the task.

The rebels' leadership as well as their lack of touch with bread and butter issues affecting people has been their greatest undoing coupled with their love for hate-speech  against Tsvangirai and all those who have stood on the right side.

The love for money and corrupt dealings on the part of people that have flocked to the Renewal Team is well documented as it is in the public domain that they have always been driven by material benefits at the expense of serving the people of Zimbabwe.

The only value the Renewal Team has brought to the movement is that they have awakened Tsvangirai to the need to engage the real owners of the struggle - the people.

Thanks to their ill-fated campaign, Tsvangirai has gone on a tour of the country, re-energising the support base and rebuilding confidence in the masses.

What he now needs to do is to continue engaging the real owners of the struggle, and keep the momentum going for the final onslaught of the regime.  The betrayal by the elite members of our struggle should lead to a critical rethink of the need to go back to the founding values and members of the struggle.

The people's struggle has always been driven by the working class and it is time that the movement realigned itself on such foundations.

The elite and "Johnny-come-laties" have divided and destroyed the people's fight and it is my hope that the whole leadership of the party learns that they have to be careful with people whose only interest in this struggle is profit.

Now going forward, the MDC president has to be decisive and firm always reminding himself that it is not everyone who wishes him well in this fight to remove Robert Mugabe.

Morgan Tsvangirai has to soldier on and deliver the people of Zimbabwe from untold suffering and abject poverty that the Zanu PF administration has condemned all of us to.

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*Chinoputsa is an MDC National Youth Executive Member and is writing in his personal capacity.