MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa yesterday proposed a
transitional government for the country, which he said would resolve the issue
of legitimacy and have sufficient buy-in from Zimbabweans to deal with the
worsening economic problems. He accused the ruling Zanu PF party of reneging on
an earlier agreement on a power-sharing plan.
Addressing journalists in Harare, Chamisa claimed before
the death of Morgan Tsvangirai, MDC founding president, in February and
following the ouster of former President Robert Mugabe from power, a deal had
been agreed with Zanu PF to put off elections in favour of a transitional
administration until the economy had normalised.
He said war veterans leaders Christopher Mutsvangwa and
Victor Matemadanda were aware of the arrangement, but Zanu PF later chose to
push for elections, which President Emmerson Mnangagwa narrowly won. Chamisa
disputed the poll result.
The MDC Alliance leader has refused to acknowledge a
Constitutional Court ruling that confirmed Mnangagwa’s victory and frequently
calls him an illegitimate leader.
In September last year, before Mugabe was forced out in a
coup two months later, Reuters, citing politicians, diplomats and documents from inside the Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO),
noted that then Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa was looking to co-operate
with Tsvangirai to lead a transitional government for five years and that the
arrangement had “tacit backing of some of Zimbabwe’s military and Britain”.
Such a transitional authority would “avoid the chaos that
has followed some previous elections”, the report noted.
“This unity government would pursue a new relationship with
thousands of white farmers who were chased off in violent seizures of land
approved by Mugabe in the early 2000s. The farmers would be compensated and
reintegrated, according to senior politicians, farmers and diplomats. The aim
would be to revive the agricultural sector, a linchpin of the nation’s economy
that collapsed catastrophically after the land seizures.
“Mnangagwa realises he needs the white farmers on the land
when he gets into power … he will use the white farmers to resuscitate the
agricultural industry, which he reckons is the backbone of the economy,”
Reuters wrote, citing a January 6, 2016 report.
Chamisa said the election had brought chaos and that the
transitional authority was now inevitable.
“We need a national transitional authority and that is the
one that is going to lay the framework for these steps so that we resolve this
crisis. We are seeing a repetition of the 2013 problem,” Chamisa said.
“The problem president Tsvangirai left, the problem Mugabe
didn’t solve, the problems Mnangagwa would want to perpetuate. We want to put a
stop and we cannot be talking about elections all the time, we want to talk
about development.”
The MDC leader said talks between himself and Mnangagwa,
which were initiated by church organisations, had broken down because
“Mnangagwa seems not to have an appetite for it, while he is fixated on
engaging the international community and forgetting that the local community is
critical as well”.
Chamisa said his party had put forward five points that
must be addressed and they were: returning to legitimacy; undertaking
comprehensive reforms; nation-building and peace-building; having a common
approach to international isolation and addressing the economic situation.
He said in the transitional authority, they would not be
used to sanitise Zanu PF as happened in 2008 when they went into a GNU.
“The transitional authority is going to be a creature of
the discussions, we do not want to define the confines and parameters of it now
because we want a national discourse,” he said, adding “we want something that
is not going to compromise the MDC because we don’t want a repeat of 2008,
where we were used to chlorinate the infected.
“We don’t want a repeat of 2008 and once beaten twice shy,
the agenda is not about power, positions, but answers to the people of
Zimbabwe. We need permanent answers to resolve the national question.”
Chamisa said the biggest challenge with the Zanu PF-led
government was the high level of fiscal indiscipline at the apex of government,
which has resulted in domestic debt ballooning when Mnangagwa took office.
He claimed his party had a clear path and the formula that
Zimbabwe must take to extricate itself from its quagmire.
Chamisa said it was folly and delusional to think that the
bond notes were at par with the US dollar and demanded an audit by Parliament
into the ballooning domestic debt to figure out how the money was spent.
But Zanu PF secretary for legal affairs Munyaradzi Paul
Mangwana described Chamisa’s utterances as madness.
“He is mad. There was no discussion of this nature. We
govern this country through the Constitution and as a lawyer, I expect him to
read it,” Mangwana said.
“We only have a transitional government if there is no
government and, in this instance, we have elections that were held in terms of
the Constitution and the winner was declared by the Constitutional Court, and
there is no room for the so-called transitional government. Transiting to
where? We cannot have a transitional government in an independent sovereign
authority. We held democratic elections and a winner was declared by the
ConCourt.” Newsday
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