Mdc leader Welshman Ncube, has claimed he and other senior party officials played a key role in propping Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to where he is now before they parted ways in 2005.
In a recent live radio interview with SW Radio, Ncube said: “We built Tsvangirai ourselves, we spent the better part of nearly 10 years before that election, us as the rank and file leaders of the party canvassing for him, people lost their lives canvassing for him.
“The so-called popularity that you are referring to was the popularity built on the blood and the sweat of the ordinary people, on the lives of the ordinary people of this country, the members of the MDC who were obviously campaigning for the party projecting the person who was the current leader of the party,” Ncube said.
“It’s in fact extremely insulting to then be arrogant when in fact people lost their lives going door-to-door, doing campaigns to project your image, to campaign for you as a leader of a particular party.
“It’s self-evident that any political party at any o ne time is associated around the name, the brand, the name of its leader and that’s simply what happened in 2008.”
Ncube dismissed as untrue claims in Tsvangirai’s memoirs, At the Deep End, that his MDC party officials had ridden on the PM’s popularity “…in the forlorn hope that part of it would rub off onto them”.
“They were uncomfortable with me as a person and a leader and I sensed that they wanted to build their political careers using Tsvangirai as a seat-warmer who could ultimately be dislodged as soon as the right opportunity presented itself,” Tsvangirai says in the book.
Tsvangirai’s biography was written by his former spokesperson and veteran journalist Tagwirei William Bango.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
The book was published by Penguin Books of South Africa. It chronicles Tsvangirai’s personal and political life.
The 663-page book, according to Tsvangirai, was titled At the Deep End on account of the challenges he has faced, some of which were “knife-edge and like being thrown at the deep end”.
The book has sparked heated debate with MDC and Zanu PF officials claiming it contained several “half-truths”.
