MDC-T deputy national spokesperson Thabitha Khumalo says her party salvaged Zanu PF from the jaws of obscurity by inviting it on humanitarian grounds to be part of the coalition government.
Addressing members of the Bulawayo Press club over the weekend, Khumalo, who is also Bulawayo East MP, said had it not been for her party’s “magnanimity”, Zanu PF would be dead by now.
“In the last election, we completely overran Zanu PF, even without a proper voters’ roll, we managed to silence them.
“It is out of our pity that we helped Zanu PF back into power through the backdoor as we agreed to the Sadc (Southern Africa Development Community)-brokered GPA (Global Political Agreement),” she said.
“We could have refused to be part of any agreement with them and they would be a dead party by now.
“But because we are human, we said we are all Zimbabweans and should share power.
“We did not want to take everything. The truth is that Zanu PF pick-pocketed, if there is anything like that, its way into power. We beat it very hard.”
Khumalo was making reference to the results of the first round of the March 2008 elections where for the first time since independence in 1980, President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party lost to the MDC-T in parliamentary elections.
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Mugabe also lost to Tsvangirai in the first round of the presidential election, but the MDC-T leader failed to garner enough votes to claim the presidency.
Mugabe later won uncontested in the subsequent run-off election after Tsvangirai pulled out of the race citing violence against his supporters.
After the international community declined to recognise Mugabe’s victory, the two parties along with the smaller MDC formation then formed a coalition government in February 2009.
