Mujuru in Catch-22 situation

By Blessings Mashaya

HARARE – National People’s Party (NPP) leader Joice Mujuru is caught between joining a conglomeration of smaller parties under Coalition of Democrats (Code) or concentrate on covering ground under a pact signed with MDC president Morgan Tsvangirai.

Mujuru’s spokesperson Gift Nyandoro said the NPP was still consulting, insisting she was committed to “collective leadership”.

“The party is still going on with consultative process, we are consulting the necessary party structures and at grassroots level.

“The process is underway, we are doing it as a coalition process which is bigger than Code signing,” Nyandoro told the Daily News yesterday.

Tsvangirai, 65, who was Zimbabwe’s prime minister in an uneasy coalition government with Mugabe from 2009 until 2013, and Mujuru, who was the nonagenarian’s vice president for a decade until she was fired in 2014, are engaged in talks to form a grand coalition which is expected to contest next year’s elections as a single bloc.

Analysts have said a united opposition stands the best chance of defeating Mugabe and Zanu PF in the much-awaited polls due next year.

Tsvangirai, a three-time “loser” to Mugabe, has also inked similar deals to the one with Mujuru with Welshman Ncube and Jacob Ngarivhume.

“A lot is taking place behind the scenes between us the NPP and MDC. We are aware of some conspiracy theories, which are aiming at poisoning our relationship with MDC.

“We were equally happy with Tsvangirai when he signed an agreement with (Welshman) Ncube.

“We need each other, we need Tsvangirai, Simba Makoni, Tendai Biti and others; we need to find each other,” said Nyandoro.

Mujuru was expected to sign a pact with Code last week but changed her mind at the last minute because she was not impressed with the venue of the signing ceremony.

The signing ceremony was set for the Renewal Democrats of Zimbabwe (RDZ) offices in Harare instead of the originally-planned Anglican Cathedral.

Mujuru reportedly did not want to create an impression that she had been absorbed as a political outfit by RDZ as what happened to her when she signed the memorandum of understanding with Tsvangirai at his Highlands home.

There is a consensus among the country’s political observers that an electoral pact that involves Tsvangirai and Mujuru stands a chance of ending Mugabe’s 37-year rule.

Fitting smugly into the straitjacket philosophy — that is venerated by the country’s influential military — Mujuru boasts of liberation war credentials that have thus far been Tsvangirai’s Achilles heel, and is regarded as an alternative because of her historical ties and also links to key government departments. Daily News