TSVANGIRAI; JOIN FORCES WITH NCUBE IF YOU CARE ABOUT ZIM!

THE MDC party led by Welshman Ncube on Wednesday mocked MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai’s protests against Zanu PF for stalling reforms agreed in 2008 accusing him of flouting SADC resolutions. Tsvangirai is on a week-long trip around Africa trying to persuade leaders to lean on President Robert Mugabe to implement media, security and electoral reforms before elections are called. But the MDC has accused Tsvangirai of hypocrisy over his alleged refusal – in collusion with Mugabe  to accept Ncube as a principal as outlined in a SADC resolution after he became leader of his party in 2011, replacing Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara who later filed a court challenge.

“The last resolution made in Maputo which stated clearly that Welshman Ncube was a principal of the GPA [Global Political Agreement] and thus must be involved in all GPA deliberations has not only been ignored and trashed by Mugabe and Zanu PF but by Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC-T,” MDC spokesman Nhlanhla Dube said in a statement on Wednesday. “What makes all this interesting is that after failing to adhere to SADC resolutions, Tsvangirai is hopping from one SADC member state to another ostensibly to complain about the non-implementation of GPA agreements. This to be honest is plain silly and embarrassing.”

Dube said Tsvangirai had “quite clearly failed to exhibit an understanding of how SADC works”, adding: “He thinks that the body whose resolution he spat at with regards to Ncube's status will now listen to him and grant him some imagined favours. “Someone must call him back and tell him that sadly for him, SADC already knows that he has been cohabitating with Mugabe and Zanu PF… ”

Tsvangirai met South African President Jacob Zuma on Sunday and then flew to Tanzania for talks with President Jakaya Kikwete before a meeting with Angola’s Foreign Minister on Tuesday. He does not return home until Sunday. The MDC-T leader is trying to persuade SADC leaders to call an extraordinary summit on Zimbabwe, as well as the convening of the SADC troika on politics, defence and security to discuss Zimbabwe’s impending elections.

Tsvangirai fears that Mugabe could call elections in June before his party’s “minimum conditions” for taking part in the elections are met. But Zanu PF says all the so-called reforms demanded by Tsvangirai have found expression in a new constitution set to come before Parliament next week. Zanu PF says the life of the current Parliament will come to an end in June and delaying elections would leave a vacuum in the legislature. Tsvangirai is also finding little sympathy from Ncube’s party after the former university law professor found himself locked out of several meetings between Mugabe and the Prime Minister.

Dube said: “If Tsvangirai was genuinely interested in implementation of the SADC resolutions, he would have insisted that Ncube be there when crucial decisions were being made because that is the only way implementation would be done. “By slapping Ncube in the face, they [Mugabe and Tsvangirai] are actually slapping SADC in the face. The MDC is in no doubt that as diplomatic parlance will require, SADC will sit him on comfortable couches, serve him tea and take smile-filled pictures with him, but when it comes to decision time they will point him straight back to all the resolutions on which he has been helping Mugabe not to implement.”