Mutambara MDC deny being unreasonable in unity talks

By Tererai Karimakwenda
04 February, 2008

The MDC faction headed by Professor Arthur Mutambara has dismissed allegations by the Tsvangirai MDC that unity talks over the weekend, which were aimed at creating a united front against Robert Mugabe in the March elections, collapsed due to unreasonable demands on their part.

On Monday we reported that the talks had collapsed and the MDC leaders will contest as separate presidential candidates. Each party will also field their own candidates for parliament. Both MDC formations have admitted that the unity talks collapsed due specifically to differences over the allocation of parliamentary seats, particularly in Matabeleland province. But they differ however over which party had been unreasonable in their demands.

Nelson Chamisa, spokesperson for the Tsvangirai MDC, said their National Council had rejected proposals to share parliamentary seats equally with the Mutambara MDC. He said they had wanted 50% of all seats, including in constituencies where they had no structures. Chamisa said demands by the Mutambara formation had been viewed as “arrogant and unreasonable”.

On Tuesday we spoke to Gabriel Chaibva, spokesperson for the Mutambara MDC, and he denied the allegations that they had been unreasonable. He said the two groups had adopted a “unification document” which established two broad principles.

The first was that there ought to be one candidate for every position, from president, senator, house of assembly and local government. Secondly, that both formations would be guaranteed at least 30% of all the contested seats in the respective provinces.

But according to Chaibva, when it came to discussing new seats the Tsvangirai MDC wanted all 18 new seats created by the delimitation of constituencies in Harare, except for 1 which would go to Mutambara. He said that in Matabeleland the Tsvangirai MDC demanded all the seats, including areas where the Mutambara MDC had sitting members of parliament.

Chaibva said the Tsvangirai MDC wanted seats for all their “relatives, colleagues and bootlickers”. He added: “I would want to leave it to the people of Zimbabwe to decide on who is unreasonable in this context.”

With the lack of transparency and open discussion with the media it is impossible to know which MDC faction is presenting the true facts.
What is known is that Mugabe and Zanu PF have always had great skill in ensuring there has been no effective opposition to their misrule.