PRIME Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is out of his depth as the challenges facing the country are too complex for an “uneducated person”, MDC leader Welshman Ncube has said.

Ncube’s attack is the latest in a series of spats between the former opposition colleagues undermining prospects of an election pact between the two MDC formations.

Ncube told about a hundred supporters in Redcliff’s Torwood suburb that Tsvangirai, an ex-miner and trade unionist, lacked the capacity to lead the country out of its present mire.

“The people who started the struggle for Zimbabwe’s liberation in 1957 were aware that for them to win over white colonialism, they needed an educated leader... now Zimbabwe has more complex problems than those of 1957,” Ncube was quoted as saying by NewsDay.

“Business has collapsed, factories ruined and schools have all but collapsed and these require a leadership with vision and capacity, which only this party has, not a tea boy.

“Tsvangirai cannot perform miracles and solve problems of our nation. That era ended with Jesus who performed them a long time ago.”

The MDC-T leader, however, dismisses Ncube’s personal attacks insisting it was up to the electorate to decide who should run the country.

“Ncube continues to attack me over my leadership because he has nothing to offer the electorate,” Tsvangirai told supporters at a recent rally in Kwekwe.

“What I want to tell him is that he should concentrate on running his own party while he lets me run mine, then the electorate will decide who they want to trust with running this country.”

Following its formation more than a decade ago, the MDC has proved to the most serious challenge to President Robert Mugabe’s uninterrupted rule since independence in 1980.

However, an acrimonious split in 2005 over strategy and participation in Senate elections held then has been blamed for dividing the opposition vote and undermining efforts to dislodge Zanu PF from power.