By Lance Guma
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Opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai has played down allegations that dispossessed former white commercial farmers are sponsoring a rebellion within his party because they felt betrayed by his inability to support them during the coalition government.
Exiled party Treasurer General Roy Bennett, a dispossessed coffee farmer from Chimanimani, former Marondera Central MP and farmer Ian Kay and Ben Freeth who lost his Chegutu farm and is now with the SADC Tribunal Rights Watch Zimbabwe all called for Tsvangirai to step down within the same month.
This coincided with reports that the MDC had contested the July 31 elections with its lowest ever budget and was not a match for President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF that had over US$100 million to manipulate the election process.
Nehanda TV last week asked Tsvangirai if it was true that dispossessed white commercial farmers were dissatisfied with his leadership because he did not appear to have an interest in protecting their interests during the four years that his party shared power with Mugabe in a fractured coalition government.
Tsvangirai: I can understand the frustration from white commercial farmers from that perspective, but it is an unjustified criticism. Unjustified in the sense that the MDC was built on certain values, values of poor people coming together for solidarity, justice, democracy and all that.
We did not form the MDC to promote one particular interest. If in the value system of the MDC, the Commercial Farmers Union (CFU) found space for their own grievances it does not in any way undermine the overall thrust of the MDC formation.
Now, they happen to be white, they happen to be former commercial farmers, so they may have their particular interests which have nothing to do with the overall thrust of the party.
We are a social democratic party, at the formation of the MDC, obviously it was joined by people, people who sometimes were anti-Mugabe, and were not based on any particular value.
We from the labour movement, from the constitutional movement, were very clear about the values we were setting for the party. And it resonated with the majority of the poor people in the country.
Asked about reports alleging that funding for the MDC had suffered because of this Tsvangirai had the following response.
“That’s not a blame for us. Actually, it’s a very important integrity question. The fact that we are poor does not mean that we are poor in spirit, we are poor in our objective, we are poor in the resonation with the people, so the question that arises is that, if the MDC did not have sufficient funds, so what?
We ran a brilliant campaign, I had 57 rallies that I undertook, so what is wrong with that? The MDC ran a brilliant campaign, the MDC had the support of the whole nation for change.
Mugabe had a whole budget, US$100 million, supported by Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo from Equatorial Guinea, supported by (Joseph) Kabila, supported by diamonds, supported by Mbada (Diamonds) supported by Anjin, all that money was going into a pot to rig the elections, not to support the people of Zimbabwe who are hungry out there.
If it is a comparison of resources, yes Zanu PF had overwhelming resources, because of the sources, because they were denying the fiscus, to access diamond money, to access any other resources.”
