Ncube inflexibility self destructive: Chitate

By Benjamin Chitate

When Zimbabweans had breathed a sigh of relief and hoped that the MDCs had realized that the country was bigger than partisan pride and were going to work out some sort of pact to dislodge Mugabe, Professor Welshman Ncube dashed their hopes once again.

Despite suggestions from a lot of progressive Zimbabweans, including his own David Coltart, that forces opposed to Mugabe should force some sort of pact to ensure that Zanu PF is completely defeated in the next elections which are likely in 2013, Professor Ncube and some of his colleagues have resolved they will stick to a congress resolution of January 2011 and not join hands with the Tsvangirai-led MDC.

Professor Ncube’s stance points to his failure to read the political dynamics of the country and respond accordingly. It is unfortunate that the rest of the leadership are failing to see sense in Senator David Coltart’s observation that the two parties should strive to agree on an electoral pact so that they do not split the vote as happened in 2008.

The MDC-Ncube officials who are failing to support Senator Coltart’s line of thinking are most likely being wrongly influenced by Professor Ncube’s pride to come to the negotiating table with Morgan Tsvangirai after Professor Ncube’s infamous statement made in Redcliff last year.

Ncube was quoted saying “business has collapsed, factories ruined and schools have all but collapsed, and these require a leadership with vision and capacity, which only this party has, not a tea boy”. Clever politicians whose aim is to help the people should learn to put people before personal pride.

Professor Ncube’s continued refusal to join forces with the Tsvangirai-led MDC which every Zimbabwean in their right frame of mind knows is the only party with real potential to unseat Zanu PF creates the impression among ordinary Zimbabweans that he is not interested in a solution to resolve the ‘Zanu PF-caused problems’ that people have had to make do with over the years and gives credence to observations made by many that he is divisive.

This leaves the only choice for progressive Zimbabweans who want to see an end to the suffering being to de-campaign Professor Ncube and his party. To continue to persuade him to work with the Tsvangirai-lead MDC is like flogging a dead horse and a waste of time, so he should be left to work alone with a few others who think like him and suffer the consequences of his negative behaviour.

While the Ncube-lead MDC may have made a resolution to go it alone almost two years ago in January 2011, the leadership, especially Professor Ncube himself as leader, should have kept an ear to the ground to read public opinion.

Zimbabweans based both in Zimbabwe and outside Zimbabwe have made abundantly clear the need for some sort of pact to ensure Zanu PF is dead and buried, and for any politician to go against that public wish is to go against the grain, and the consequences are obviously his demise. Let him not say he wasn’t warned.

Professor Ncube’s refusal to co-operate with the MDC-T will most likely lead a new wave of defections to the MDC-T, and as he has done in the past, he will claim that the defectors are being bribed.

If the MDC-T was really bribing people to defect from their parties to join it, I do not think they will have had enough money to bribe Obert Mpofu’s former campaign manager, Lameck Moyo who ditched Zanu PF for the MDC-T a few months ago.

It is highly probable that Professor Ncube is being misled by his own officials who may be telling him that the defecting officials are being bribed. Professor Ncube’s ‘know-it-all attitude’ is dangerous, and it is time he woke up and smelt the coffee.

Benjamin Chitate, New Zealand