Concern over failure to unite MDC factions

By Tichaona Sibanda
9 February 2007

A political analyst on Friday urged the opposition MDC to unite and take advantage of the political and economic crisis sweeping through the country to win the hearts and minds of the suffering population.

The analyst, who asked not to be named, told Newsreel that enough time has been wasted on ‘going around and throwing about ideas in interminable negotiations.’ He said the time has come to get down to serious result-oriented talks. He warned that failure of what observers regard as the best opportunity in months to resolve the break-up, would mean more suffering Zimbabweans would get fed up with an ineffective opposition.

‘The country is in a crisis and the government is slowly sinking by the day and this should be the time for a united opposition to stand up and show Mugabe the door,’ said the analyst.

The founding president of the MDC, Morgan Tsvangirai, is still very keen to see the revival of unity talks between the two factions of the party, a senior MDC official said on Friday. Sam Sipepa Nkomo, the chairman of the reunification committee from the Tsvangirai camp, told Newsreel from Bulawayo that Tsvangirai phones him every week to see if there has been any progress.

‘Every week I get a call from the President for an update. It shows his enthusiasm for a united MDC,’ Nkomo said. Arthur Mutambara, the leader of the other faction, is also on record saying he is in favour of a unified MDC.

Nkomo revealed he has made contact with Welshman Ncube, the secretary-general of the Mutambara faction and spelt out his faction’s desire to engage each other in talks. We could not get in touch with Ncube to comment on this but their spokesman Gabriel Chaibva reiterated that they were not opposed to any talks aimed at bringing about the reunification of all democratic forces.

However, he said any contacts between the two factions so far had only been made to establish mutual respect and recognition. He added; ‘We are still to hear from them (Tsvangirai MDC) about what we asked them to do, which is to accept responsibility for the initial break-up.’