Tsvangirai only viable candidate

As expected, some opportunistic political parties with no grassroots support were up in arms following the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC-T's resolution to field a candidate with a real chance of winning against President Robert Mugabe.

If the removal of Zanu-PF from power is what Zimbabwe needs, then anyone who argues against such a position is either just power-hungry, jealousy, part of the Zanu-PF machinery or all of the three combined. How can you want to remove Zanu-PF and then field a candidate without the capacity to win against Mugabe, who has already been endorsed as the Zanu-PF candidate for the 2018 elections? Why then are phrases such as tried and tested developed if someone dismisses such a position?

I have written my own opinion article on the subject and said that the political party with the biggest following must provide the candidate for the presidential elections against Mugabe, and I am still of the same opinion. Other parties who wish to present their own candidates must simply prove their political capital in the negotiations.

The problem with some of these parties is that they overvalue their potential, just as Professors Arthur Mutambara and Welshman Ncube did in 2008 when, as confirmed by Tendai Biti, they allowed the talks to field a common candidate over two seats when they thought the MDC-T was wrongly static in its support in Bulawayo. Political parties opposing Tsvangirai in his party's position should study the 2008 effort to prove for themselves that the MDC-T are more realistic in their approach.

The MDC-T must proceed to identify appropriate players to work with to achieve the goal to end Zanu-PF rule for the good of the nation.

I appeal to all reasonable political parties opposed to Mugabe not to repeat the Mutambara, Dumiso Dabengwa and Simba Makoni's experiment of 2008 which was influenced, to a large extent, by the amateurish approach to politics and hate for Tsvangirai as expressed by Dabengwa who said he could not support a trade unionist and a Frederick Chiluba-like candidate, even when the late Father Zimbabwe Dr Joshua Nkomo was a trade unionist.

I also appeal to Zimbabweans who wish to see Zimbabwe extricated from the jaws of the Zanu-PF dictatorship to rally behind a candidate with potential to remove Mugabe to bring about a new beginning for the country.