MDC president Professor Welshman Ncube will not contest for
any position in the forthcoming elections and will only help co-ordinate and
campaign for his party candidates and MDC-Alliance presidential candidate, Mr
Nelson Chamisa.
The move by Prof Ncube has raised questions on his
relevance, post-elections as he is the only party principal in the alliance who
is not gunning for a seat. MDC-T president Mr Chamisa is the alliance’s
presidential candidate while other principals are standing as either MPs or Senators
in the seats that have been reserved for their parties.
The MDC Alliance is made up of seven political parties,
MDC-T, which is led by Mr Chamisa, PDP (Mr Tendai Biti), MDC (Professor
Welshman Ncube), Transform Zimbabwe (Mr Jacob Ngarivhume), Zanu Ndonga (Mr
Denford Musiyarira), Multi-Racial Christian Democratic Party (Mr Mathias
Guchutu) and Zimbabwe People First (Retired Brigadier-General Agrippa
Mutambara).
In an interview on Friday, Prof Ncube said he was not
contesting for any position in the forthcoming elections.
“I am certainly not contesting. I think you have seen that
the MDC has published its list of the candidates for the National Assembly and
my name is not there so that tells you I am not running for the National
Assembly seat nor am I running for Senate nor the Proportional Representation.
So you will not find my name in any of them,” he said.
Prof Ncube also said he was not angling to become a deputy
to Mr Chamisa as he was already a leader of a party — MDC.
“I am already one of the seven principals in the alliance
so why should I be a deputy?” he said.
The alliance has also been dogged by power struggles
resulting in the parties failing to come up with neutral colours and symbols to
use for the campaigns. In Kenya, the National Super Alliance (Nasa) formed by
opposition political parties led by Mr Raila Odinga adopted a single colour
branding with all the parties in the coalition dropping their respective
regalia.
Prof Ncube, who is also the alliance’s spokesman said
campaign regalia will be in two forms — red for the presidential campaigns and
respective party colours for other campaigns such as Parliamentary and
Senatorial. MDC-T’s brand colour is red while MDC-N is branded in green, PDP’s
colours are orange, Transform Zimbabwe (blue), ZimPF (white) while Zanu-Ndonga
does not have defined party colours.
“The presidential campaign material, that is to say the
t-shirts, berets, posters and pamphlets, will obviously be branded in red, the
colour of the MDC-T where our presidential candidate is coming from. In respect
of our candidates’ campaign at Parliamentary level as well as at ward level,
the candidates and the parties are at liberty to use all of the seven colours
of the alliance,” he said. The alliance is also grappling to consolidate the
ideas from the seven parties to come up with a manifesto.
Other major players in the coming elections, Zanu-PF and
the MDC formation led by Dr Thokozani Khupe, have already launched their
manifestos.
Prof Ncube said the alliance had put in place a policy and
research committee that was spearheading the process of coming up with the
party’s manifesto. He was, however, non-committal on when the alliance planned
to launch its election manifesto.
“We have a policy and research committee which is chaired
by Tendai Biti. That committee in consultation with the other committees and
the principals has been working on two documents. The first document is a
comprehensive detailed policy document. That committee is also working on the
second document, which is an abridged version of the bigger document which will
become the manifesto that we are going to launch and present. So at some point
in the next few weeks we will set a date for the launch of the two documents,
the comprehensive policy document and the manifesto. So it is work in progress,
which we hope to complete as soon as possible and hopefully before an election
is proclaimed,” he said.
The MDC Alliance has threatened to crack on several
occasions, with Transform Zimbabwe leader Mr Ngarivhume at some point
threatening to quit the coalition over allocation of Parliamentary seats among
the seven political parties. Reports have indicated that MDC-T was also
selecting candidates in seats that are already reserved for other parties.
Sunday News
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