INDUSTRY and Commerce Minister Welshman Ncube has dismissed as “shameless” and “despicable” remarks by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai dismissing his party as a regional outfit.
Ncube said it was idle employ for leaders to worry about the “ethnic and regional origins” of their rivals while millions of people suffered in abject poverty.
Speaking in a recent interview with the France-based Africa Report, MDC-T leader Tsvangirai ruled out the prospect of a pre-election pact with Ncube’s MDC party, dismissing it as a regional organisation.
“Now they have retreated to be regional party; so I don’t think that is healthy for uniting the people. So we will have to put that into consideration, as to whether they want to be a national flag or (sic),” Tsvangirai was quoted as saying.
But Ncube charged: “I don't know what seized the Prime Minister to cause him to accuse us of retreating into being a regional party. Could he be suggesting that a party becomes regional once its president originates from outside Mashonaland, and his or her mother language is Ndebele?”
Ncube's MDC party split from Tsvangirai in 2005 following a dispute over participation in Senate elections and deep divisions over strategy.
With efforts to facilitate a re-union failing, analysts say the acrimonious split has benefitted President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu PF party by dividing the opposition vote.
Ncube insisted that his party’s leadership was “far more balanced and representative” than that of the MDC-T.
But political leaders, he said, should rise above issues of tribe and instead focus on the many serious challenges facing the country.
“Zimbabweans deserve better. We should be debating ideas, policies and programmes to take our country and our people to prosperity and not this," Ncube told New Zimbabwe.com.
“We invite the PM to a debate any place, any time on any issue of policy or on any subject concerning the welfare and interests of the people. We have no desire to debate him on fiction. I hope that this is the last time we have to sink to this level of shamelessness, despicability and emptiness!
“The people of Zimbabwe are suffering. Millions live in poverty and have no jobs. They need a serious leadership to bring back prosperity to the country."