MDC Spokesman responds to Tsvangirai’s allegations

By Violet Gonda
20 October 2005

Reacting to accusation by the MDC president that vote buying and self interests swung the senate vote when the national council met last week, Party Spokesman Paul Temba Nyathi said he is distressed by the attitude and very unhappy that he made disparaging remarks of that nature. Nyathi who denied that he has self-interests said he hoped the MDC president would retract the statements saying they were defamatory. He urged people to accommodate different views.

Meanwhile, the stalemate continues between the leadership as a meeting scheduled for Thursday failed to materialise. It’s not known when the top 6 leaders of the party will meet as some have gone to South Africa for a meeting. Nyathi said the party is still exactly where it was last week with no solution in sight.

During the interview Nyathi said, "I am extremely reluctant to get involved in that kind of discussion given the amount of intimidation that has been coming directly from the president’s office. I am too embarrassed and ashamed as a member of the MDC to even talk about those things and I hope Mr Tsvangirai himself would actually desist from talking about those things because they put the party in disrepute, because they are not very helpful in the search for a resolution to this extremely difficult matter.”

On the issue that he and Renson Gasela had self-interest in the senatorial race, Nyathi said that it was a cheap shot at two persons who have been loyal to that party and worked hard. He said, “For the interest of your listeners, unless circumstances change and they would have to change drastically, I have no interest. I repeat, I have no interest of standing for a senatorial seat for the simple reason that I have a lot of work that would actually put into jeopardy by my standing. If Mr Tsvangirai had the courtesy of asking me instead of making disparaging remarks, I would have told him my position.

The spokesman, who said was only doing his job by issuing the statement on the results of the National Council vote, stressed that because people have different views does not make them bad people.