PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai said on Thursday elections would go ahead next year once the constitutional reform exercise is completed.
Speaking in South Africa where he was meeting with supporters of the MDC-T, Tsvangiirai said he was party was in a “marriage of convenience with President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF”.
Tsvangirai and Mugabe signed a political pact to establish a unity government following violent but inconclusive general elections in 2008 but the arrangement continues to be undermined by endless squabbles between the parties over full implementation of the coalition deal.
The MDC-T leader said working with Zanu PF in the coalition administration had had enabled the country to reverse its economic decline and the “plunge towards a failed state”.
He said elections would go ahead next year as scheduled under the Global Political Agreement.
"When we emerge from the constitutional reform programme an agreed timeframe for elections will be outlined," Tsvangirai said.
He also dismissed allegations of divisions within his party, saying the MDC-T was trying to adapt to being in government and running a party at the same time.
"The struggle for a democratic end is still in place," he said. "The ideal arrangement is to respect, conduct an election with a clear winner."
President Mugabe’s Zanu PF has also indicated that it is in the process of readying its structures for next year’s ballot.
"We are cut in a way where we are ready for elections any time. However, we need to straighten our structures and, generally, understand what we did (wrong) in the past," spokesperson, Rugare Gumbo after a meeting of the party’s politburo on Wednesday.