By Farayi Machamire
Former vice president Joice Mujuru, has alleged that while she was committed to the formation of a grand coalition, she found MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa to be evasive on the matter.
National People’s Party (NPP) leader told a local radio station yesterday that her party reached out to Chamisa after the MDC Alliance president took over the reins of the country’s largest opposition party from the late Morgan Tsvangirai in February.
“…we tried to talk to Chamisa but he was sneaky and evasive. It also did not help matters that time was not on our side; that’s why we are where we are,” Mujuru said.
The talks for opposition parties to find each other and unite under one umbrella had reached an advanced stage before they stalled as MDC founding father, Tsvangirai, battled and eventually yielded to colon cancer on February 14.
Tsvangirai’s party was left in disarray as fissures widened before Chamisa assumed the party’s leadership and that of the MDC Alliance, albeit under contestation from Thokozani Khupe who broke away insisting she was the legitimate leader.
Mujuru alleged yesterday that the NPP battled to negotiate in good faith but differed as the MDC insisted on using the MDC Alliance banner, name, logo and slogan.
She said this was in conflict with tenets of inclusivity, as they wanted a neutral name.
They also failed to agree on the allocation of seats for Members of Parliament, Senators and councillors.
“We had our memorandum of understanding (MoU). What we wrote down in that MoU — most of it, we agreed. What we did not agree is that the question of who are the most popular candidates needs consensus and involvement of membership on the ground.
“They refused, saying they have people in Parliament who should remain in their seats. We did not agree. We also said the person leading the coalition should be chosen by the people, (but) they refused, saying ‘no, Tsvangirai is our leader’…We also could not agree on a common logo and name.”
Mujuru eventually cast her hat in the ring as one of the 22 presidential hopefuls, dashing the MDC Alliance’s endeavours to narrow the list of competitors in the presidential race.
By successful filing her papers at the Nomination Court last month, history was made, as for the first time in post-independent Zimbabwe there will be female presidential candidates — three of them.
Mujuru joined Khupe, leader of the splinter MDC faction, and the little-known Violet Mariyacha who will be taking on their male counterparts for the right to occupy the most powerful political office in the country in the July 30 plebiscite. DailyNews
