Opinion / Columnist
The Facts about the Cape Town Meeting
11 Feb 2018 at 02:52hrs | Views
Several malicious and unfounded falsehoods have been deliberately peddled by Zanu-PF leadership and elements within the MDC Alliance. The motives for such falsehoods remain unclear but perhaps a sad epitomy of the factionalism that is threatening to tear pro-democracy forces apart 4 months before the water-shed post-coup elections.
The so-called Cape Town meeting evolved out of a set of consultations that began in September 2017 in Zimbabwe and South Africa. One of the key motivations behind this meeting was the need to create a safe space for Zimbabwean Coalitions to learn from different African Coalition building processes . The meeting was the outset never intended to be a negotiation platform. Such a mammoth task could not possibly happen over two short days. Invitees were always going to be individuals not Party hierarchy.
Afterall, this is a technical workshop to explore how Coalitions have worked or failed to work. Exploring in particular lessons learnt from across Africa . Contrary to media sensation and the choreographed lies from some quarters, the following MDC Alliance Leaders were formally invited and did confirm attendance : Welshman Ncube, Nelson Chamisa , Tendai Biti , Agrippa Mutambara & Ngarivhume . Last minute requests were made to accommodate Zanu Ndonga , PDP & MDC-M Secretary Generals and these were considered in good faith. But the Principals of the existing three Coalitions were all invited and confirmed their participation. Tickets were purchased and hotel reservations were made for them.Their written confirmations of attendance are available. Two of them raised informal objections to having CODE & National Rainbow Coalition folks at the an experience-sharing meeting? The organizers did not feel that the composition of an Independent experience-sharing workshop should be determined by a single political party or Coalition.
The Organizers regret the voluntary withdrawal of the 5 individuals and regret even more their patently false and defamatory statements regarding the organization of the experience sharing workshop. As a principle, the organizers could never acquiesce to the condescending characterization of other Coalitions in Zimbabwe as meaningless "Toms, Dicks & Harry's" as implied in Professor Ncube's unfortunate Statement of the 8th February 2018. At a practical level we were unaware on what basis we were being asked to exclude the other invitees . Were we to use actual votes obtained by party Principals since 2008 ? Or is it parliamentary seats won by a party? In the organizers' view, a democratic movement should ideally be an inclusive platform not one in which condescension empty arrogance reign supreme.
For the record, the so called G40 was never invited to the experience sharing workshop nor was it part of organizing the same. The concerted and choreographed disinformation campaign mounted by Zanu-PF leadership and elements of the MDC Alliance can only be noted as an unfortunate but revealing confluence of interests opposed to broad-based political dialogue and coalition building.
Dr Gorden Moyo
PDP Secretary General & PRC Secretary for Administration
The so-called Cape Town meeting evolved out of a set of consultations that began in September 2017 in Zimbabwe and South Africa. One of the key motivations behind this meeting was the need to create a safe space for Zimbabwean Coalitions to learn from different African Coalition building processes . The meeting was the outset never intended to be a negotiation platform. Such a mammoth task could not possibly happen over two short days. Invitees were always going to be individuals not Party hierarchy.
Afterall, this is a technical workshop to explore how Coalitions have worked or failed to work. Exploring in particular lessons learnt from across Africa . Contrary to media sensation and the choreographed lies from some quarters, the following MDC Alliance Leaders were formally invited and did confirm attendance : Welshman Ncube, Nelson Chamisa , Tendai Biti , Agrippa Mutambara & Ngarivhume . Last minute requests were made to accommodate Zanu Ndonga , PDP & MDC-M Secretary Generals and these were considered in good faith. But the Principals of the existing three Coalitions were all invited and confirmed their participation. Tickets were purchased and hotel reservations were made for them.Their written confirmations of attendance are available. Two of them raised informal objections to having CODE & National Rainbow Coalition folks at the an experience-sharing meeting? The organizers did not feel that the composition of an Independent experience-sharing workshop should be determined by a single political party or Coalition.
The Organizers regret the voluntary withdrawal of the 5 individuals and regret even more their patently false and defamatory statements regarding the organization of the experience sharing workshop. As a principle, the organizers could never acquiesce to the condescending characterization of other Coalitions in Zimbabwe as meaningless "Toms, Dicks & Harry's" as implied in Professor Ncube's unfortunate Statement of the 8th February 2018. At a practical level we were unaware on what basis we were being asked to exclude the other invitees . Were we to use actual votes obtained by party Principals since 2008 ? Or is it parliamentary seats won by a party? In the organizers' view, a democratic movement should ideally be an inclusive platform not one in which condescension empty arrogance reign supreme.
For the record, the so called G40 was never invited to the experience sharing workshop nor was it part of organizing the same. The concerted and choreographed disinformation campaign mounted by Zanu-PF leadership and elements of the MDC Alliance can only be noted as an unfortunate but revealing confluence of interests opposed to broad-based political dialogue and coalition building.
Dr Gorden Moyo
PDP Secretary General & PRC Secretary for Administration
Source - Dr Gorden Moyo
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