GNU will collapse if I am not made DPM: Ncube

 

Professor Welshman Ncube believes Zimbabwe’s coalition government faces collapse if he is not sworn in as Deputy Prime Minister. His aspirations for the post have hit a brick wall after Arthur Mutambara refused to accept a so-called ‘redeployment’ to make way for Ncube, the new party leader.

But in a dramatic series of events, Mutambara on Monday said he did not recognise Ncube as new party leader and would not be resigning as the Deputy Prime Minister. Following reports Ncube wanted to expel Mutambara from the party on Thursday, Mutambara himself said he had fired Ncube on Wednesday.

Over the weekend Ncube said “I have made a request to talk to the president. We will most likely meet this week on Tuesday. We don’t believe he will refuse once we put it to him. We think that to refuse to recognise a representative of our party will be basically destroying the foundation of the government of national unity (GNU).

“The GNU is a three-party coalition represented by people of each party’s choice. Once we have people chosen by other parties it destroys the foundation of the GNU. We trust that no one can possibly suggest who our representative should be,” Ncube said.

But on Tuesday Ncube got his chance to meet Mugabe after the normal cabinet meeting and nothing changed. For two and a half hours Mugabe is said to have defended Mutambara vociferously, before ending the talks by claiming he would consult Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on the matter.

Almost 4 months after appearing to trivialize MDC-T complaints about the appointments of Johannes Tomana, Gideon Gono and Roy Bennett in the coalition government, Ncube finds himself eating his own words, after becoming another outstanding issue.