THE MDC yesterday lashed out at President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, accusing them of excluding its leader Welshman Ncube from a meeting on Monday to start preparations for forthcoming elections.
Report by Nduduzo Tshuma Staff Reporter
Mugabe, Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara met to review progress on preparations for harmonised elections and the draft constitution.
The three instructed the Cabinet committee tasked with breaking the deadlock in the constitution-making process to report to them by today so that they can map the way forward.
According to the MDC, Ncube — who was declared a principal of the Global Political Agreement (GPA) instead of Mutambara by the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) — was not invited.
MDC national spokesperson Nhlanhla Dube said his party was planning to take “appropriate action” in response to Ncube’s exclusion, which he described as a violation of the Sadc resolution.
“We note with concern the exclusion of our president Welshman Ncube, who is and remains politically and legally a principal in the Global Political Agreement (GPA), from the first-ever principals’ meeting of 2013 which took place on Monday,” he said.
Dube said the move was shocking, “given that the meeting was meant to review progress on (preparations for elections) by the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) and to discuss progress made by the reconstituted Copac committee on the constitution-making process”.
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“He (Ncube) has been excluded from these meetings time and again and we see this as a gross violation of the Sadc resolution, which clearly states that Ncube is one of the principals,” Dube said.
He said the party had been quiet about the sidelining of Ncube “on many, many occasions” in the hope that “common sense” would prevail.
“Alas, it is obvious now that common sense is far from being common to those whose new-found comfort within the spaces created by the GPA has compromised their desire for real change that will deliver a fair and just Zimbabwe, built on a constitution which gives real power to the people,” Dube said.
“We would like to state it on record that we will take appropriate action. We know that this is a deliberate ploy to shut Ncube out as he is the only voice of legal reason and refuses to be arm-twisted into ridiculous compromises around critical areas which include the devolution clause.”
He said Ncube was the only leader who has stood firm against Zanu PF’s “endless attempts to snatch control of the constitution-making process and referendum, unlike some and for that he is being muzzled”.
Both Presidential spokesperson George Charamba and Tsvangirai’s spokesman William Bango could not be reached for comment over the matter.
Meanwhile, sources close to the Cabinet meeting that was held yesterday to resolve the impasse in the constitution-making process said a deal was unlikely because Justice minister Patrick Chinamasa was digging in. Zanu PF Copac co-chairperson Munyaradzi Paul Mangwana last week said the body had managed to resolve many outstanding issues in the draft constitution.
