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Your Excellencies, I welcome this opportunity to meet and confer with you after a fairly long period.
1. I must admit that the last few weeks have been a period of anxiety and seeming uncertainty among observers of the democratic struggle in Zimbabwe, at home and abroad.
2. I would like therefore to take this opportunity to set the record straight and allay any lingering fears among our friends and well-wishers abroad.
3. You will all recall that the National Council of the MDC met on 12 October 2005 to decide on the issue of the forthcoming Senate election.
4. The general expectation of many party members including myself was that it was going to be a routine meeting re-affirming the party’s well-known opposition to piece meal Constitutional reform. Allow me, Your Excellencies, to re-state the party’s traditional position for the record.
5. Our position on Constitutional reform is quite clear. We believe that only a broad and comprehensive process with the full participation of the people of Zimbabwe can produce an acceptable and legitimate Constitution for the country.
6. This position constitutes one of the central objectives of the party and no single organ outside the full Congress can vary or modify it. It is a fundamental principle. It is one of the major reasons for the existence of the MDC.
7. It is precisely for this reason that in Parliament, the MDC opposed and voted against Constitutional Amendment No.17, while outside Parliament, the party campaigned against and dissociated itself from that Zanu PF-driven parliamentary process.
8. When the National Council met on 12 October, deliberations were not supposed to depart from this central and cardinal position since the National Council has no authority to do so. The National Council is an administrative and policy implementation organ of the party with no authority to alter existing policies and create new ones.
9. However, the outcome of the October 12 meeting is now a matter of history. The party could not hold two contradictory positions on the same issue -- with one new consistent with the fundamental objectives of the party while the other was opposed to party policy as laid down by Congress.
10. It became absolutely vital for the party to revisit and re-fashion its policy bearings with a view to charting a consistent and common path forward. An outreach programme to consult with the people became imperative.
11. We embarked on this comprehensive consultative programme and the result was a clear re-statement of the central objectives of the party on constitutional issues, by the various party organs throughout the country.
12. It was this comprehensive consultative process that guided the deliberations of the duly constituted NEC meeting held on 5 November 2005.
13. The voice of the party as transmitted through the 5 November Council meeting, expressed a steadfast opposition and hostility to piece-meal Constitutional changes designed to consolidate the political fortunes of the Mugabe dictatorship.
14. The 5 November National Council meeting resolved:
- to stay away from the Senate election;
- to withdraw candidates who registered under the banner of the MDC from the Senate election;
- to maintain the unity and integrity of the party, and to jealously guard and re-affirm the party’s commitment to democracy and social justice values;
- to engage the broad Zimbabwean society and galvanise the people to demand a new people-driven Constitution;
- to embark on an intensive, internal political healing process to iron out differences and disagreements arising, in particular from the fall out of 12 October 2005; and
- to speed up work on the Congress process to enable the party to convene its Congress by the end of February, 2006.
15. Pursuant to the resolutions, a National Council team has already begun work on the healing process as part of our internal party efforts to reach out to our colleagues and address our differences. There is more that unites us as a party than that which divides the leadership. Meetings are taking place countrywide and I shall work very hard to ensure that the party remains intact. I have worked with the founding members of the party for many years and it is my firm belief that we shall complete the project together. Given the history of opposition parties in Zimbabwe, in particular the way political parties succumbed to Zanu PF destructive tactics through the use of the state machinery and the CIO, we had managed to withstand the pressure during the past six years. I am confident that we shall triumph and allow our people to start afresh in new Zimbabwe.
16. We shall continue with the democratic struggle, together with our partners in civil society. The economic and social condition of the people has become more desperate than at any time in the past and the regime cannot hold on for much longer through brute force.
Morgan Tsvangirai
President
Harare
10 November 2005
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