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Ncube feud: PM breaks ranks

Politics
PRIME Minister (PM) Morgan Tsvangirai has reportedly come under fire from MDC-T hardliners after be agreed to President Robert Mugabe’s idea to set up a committee to renegotiate the draft constitution.

PRIME Minister (PM) Morgan Tsvangirai has reportedly come under fire from MDC-T hardliners after be agreed to President Robert Mugabe’s idea to set up a committee to renegotiate the draft constitution. Report by Everson Mushava Chief Reporter

Tsvangirai is also accused of lending support to Mugabe and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara’s machinations to block MDC leader Welshman Ncube from the constitution making process.

The fall-out between the PM and senior MDC-T officials followed the Monday meeting of the principals where Mugabe allegedly made spirited efforts to ensure that Ncube does not attend.

Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara agreed to set up a committee to look into the submissions made by delegates at the Second All-Stakeholders’ Conference in October.

Ncube was only called after the hour-long meeting at State House to be briefed that the committee made up of a Cabinet minister and Copac co-chairpersons will break the impasse on the proposed supreme law.

The move is seen as a last ditch effort to smuggle in the more than 200 amendments made by Zanu PF on the Copac draft constitution.

Sources yesterday said Tsvangirai had met Mugabe without Ncube despite advice from the MDC-T top brass not to do so.

“Tsvangirai is betraying us,” a senior MDC-T official told NewsDay.

“We agreed as the party’s executive that he should snub any meeting on the constitution where Ncube is not invited.

“We have also agreed that the draft constitution should not be opened up for renegotiation.”

Tsvangirai has in the past talked tough against Zanu PF’s proposals to re-open negotiations on the draft saying it would be in violation of the Global Political Agreement (GPA).

“What he says is not what he acts,” the source added. “I think the problem is that he cannot defend his position when he meets Mugabe.”

Ncube yesterday said he was made to wait for an hour while Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Mutambara discussed a report on the Second All Stakeholders Conference presented by Constitutional Affairs minister Eric Matinenga.

The Industry and Trade minister said Mugabe and Tsvangirai also did not disclose the venue of the meeting until he traced them to State House.

But the PM’s acting spokesperson William Bango said the MDC-T leader had actually insisted that Ncube must attend the meeting.

“It is Tsvangirai who demanded that Ncube be invited to the meeting and when he heard Ncube was outside, he personally went out to take him in,” Bango said.

“Even last week, he personally called him (Ncube) when he was away in Uganda and flatly refused to discuss the constitution-making process in his absence.”

Bango said Tsvangirai respected the Sadc resolution that Ncube must be recognised as a GPA leader instead of Mutambara who lost the MDC leadership last year.

“Ncube has problems with Mutambara and Mugabe who has refused to appoint him Deputy PM, not Tsvangirai,” he said.

“Tsvangirai cannot interfere with another party’s internal affairs, neither is he expected to be a midwife in Ncube’s dispute with Mugabe and Mutambara.

“When Ncube was taken into the meeting, he never raised any objection and what do you want the PM to do?” he added.

Ncube said he was taken into the State House meeting by Mugabe’s spokesperson Lawrence Kamwi not Tsvangirai.

“When I got in, Mugabe pretended as if he was not aware that I (had been waiting) outside,” he said.

“He ordered Matinenga to start afresh his presentations leading to the resolutions to the setting up of a committee.

“Kamwi and Matinenga had both gone into the meeting an hour before and told them I was waiting outside.

“Mugabe said he intended to call another meeting of party leaders after the Cabinet meeting to debate the constitution, although they had already agreed on a way forward.” Ncube said before the Monday drama, Tsvangirai’s aide Ian Makone had confided in him that Mugabe had indicated that he was not comfortable with him attending.

Meanwhile, Mugabe’s spokesperson George Charamba has defended Ncube’s exclusion from Monday’s meeting.

“He wasn’t allowed in because he is not a principal,” he said.

“It would have been mortally wrong if he had been barred from a meeting of leaders of political parties.

“Yesterday’s meetings (Monday) were sequenced; the first one was for principals and the second one for leaders of political parties, which Ncube was allowed in.”