Welshman Ncube, Biti finalise talks

By Richard Chidza

Former Finance minister Tendai Biti’s renewal team is finalising re-unification talks with another splinter faction of the original MDC, led by former industry minister Welshman Ncube.

The two parties yesterday held a joint national executive meeting at which the final draft of a unity agreement was thrashed out and will be signed on November 30.

The renewal team’s interim leader, Sekai Holland said the two parties have now embarked on the final leg of the negotiations towards re-unification.

“After the signing of the memorandum of agreement we have met and have made adjustments and comments which will be incorporated into the final agreement to be announced at the end of next month,” said Holland.

Ncube added that there were separate processes, one towards a broad democratic coalition and the one in which the two former MDC formations are seeking to unite into one party.

“We are having a joint national executive meeting as part of the terms of the MoU. It provided for a meeting and when we met separately and jointly we produced a draft final agreement that we have considered and commented on. The negotiators will have to incorporate these comments and hopefully by the given date of November 30 we should have a document that we can sign to,” he said.

“We have two separate processes that will feed into each other. There is the broader coalition agreement that includes the MDC-renewal, the MDC, NCA, Mavambo and Zapu. It was broadly agreed that the draft document on that matter be taken to the different parties for further consultations with a view to reconvening maybe next month and think again about the feedback. Hopefully we will continue to build that bigger coalition”.

He said the two formations, all formerly party of the united MDC party have decided to come together based on a common value system and history.

“But ourselves as the MDC formations we felt that given our common history and objectives, there was no need to fight from separate corners (sic). We have so much in common in terms of our history, values and principles and while we work on the bigger coalition, there is need to work also on the re-unification of the two MDC formations.

“Both processes will continue in tandem and one might move faster than the other but the general idea is to bring all Zimbabweans who are democrats and who share the same values and principle to put our minds together so that we find common solutions to the problems that face our nation,” he said. The Zimbabwe Mail