We have participated in all elections since 2000 except the senatorial election in November 2005. I shall explain why.

We plan to take part in future elections in line with constitutional provisions, unless our congress decides otherwise in March. Given our experience with the electoral route, we remain unhappy with the electoral management system in this country.

We maintain that the system breeds pre-determined outcomes, hence our campaign in the Sadc region throughout 2004 for a revised electoral framework. I refer you to our Restore campaign document, parts of which were adopted by the region in Mauritius in 2004.

Our problem with the senate election was very clear. The dispute arose out of the manner in which the senate project was conceived and executed.

We argued in parliament against the senate because it violated the core of our values as enshrined in our constitution. We believe in a holistic, comprehensive people-driven constitutional process.

The senate project was born out of a piece-meal amendment and this means the MDC could not find itself participating in an election brought about by such a move.

However, the party has yet to decide on the question of continued participation in other elections in the light of our experiences during the past six years.

We have been watching the Independent sliding onto a warpath to destroy the people's project by continuing to rely on rumour and propagating falsehoods that are orchestrated and designed to malign and soil the image of the MDC and its party's president Morgan Tsvangirai.

The project started a few months ago with an opinion piece by the publisher Trevor Ncube that Tsvangirai was not fit to be president. Since that day, the whole editorial team has gone on the rampage to destroy the people's project in support of dubious political outfits that have no people on the ground.

Even after the High Court ruled that Tsvangirai is the legitimate party leader, which legal position is still standing, the paper has proceeded to sanitise a motley group of people with dirty hands purporting to have suspended him.

Never mind the fact that Justice Omerjee ruled that these revisionists have neither the standing nor the authority to suspend or expel President Tsvangirai from the MDC.

We reiterate that Tsvangirai has neither the intention nor the interest to consort with the dictatorship. Day in, night in, day out, night out, Tsvangirai has reiterated that the solution to the crisis in this country does not reside in political marriages with Zanu PF but rather in the people's power to build a democratic society.

Why does the Independent continue to rely on rumours peddled by a fraction which itself has overt relations with the ruling party?

A perception has been created that the Independent, of late, has become a megaphone of a tribal agenda, characterised by a character assassination of opposition politicians of a particular tribe while glorifying others from a particular region.

The owner of the Independent has come out publicly in support of an amorphous project called the Third Way.

The perception has it that the owner is trying to prop up discredited and rejected politicians whose preoccupation with parochial agendas is legendary. The perception feeds on an apparently hostile editorial line the paper has adopted towards the MDC, in particular its president.

Never mind those being glorified and positively covered in his newspapers include veteran media hangmen whose danger to Zimbabwe none of us will ever forget.

The Independent must come down from its pedestal and gauge the mood on the ground, the faith people still have in this people's project called the MDC and its legitimate leader, Morgan Tsvangirai. It does not make sense to continue to rely for information on fringe politicians who themselves have more skeletons to hide in their political cupboards. We are talking of former MDC politicians with real connections with Zanu PF. Politicians who have said nothing against serious allegations of writing obnoxious pieces of legislation such as Aippa.

Why would the Independent wonder loudly why George Charamba has kept mum on allegations by Jonathan Moyo that he prepared Emmerson Mnangagwa's infamous Tsholotsho speech but not ask the same question of those Moyo alleges were the authors of dangerous laws, in particular Aippa?

Indeed, can the Independent investigate which senior MDC politician has a Greendale house that is guarded by soldiers and Zanu PF militia?

Can they tell us who went to State House and was photographed with a wide smile alongside Robert Mugabe following secret talks at Parliament building?

Can the Independent investigate who owns Hampton farm in Vungu area formerly owned by Zapu? Can they tell the nation who owns Rosfentam Farm, 50 kilometres southwest of Gweru and the circumstances in which it was acquired. Around August last year, who, with the connivance of the governor of the Midlands province, moved into Onverwags Farm which belongs to T Shaw and moved his 150 cattle from Rosfentam onto this property? Who bought 95 head of cattle and outbid all the farmers and splashed $3 billion for the cattle?

Which senior MDC MPs were absent on the day parliament voted on the 17th Amendment to the Constitution when only 29 out of 41 MPs voted against it. Was it by coincidence that they were away on this crucial day?

Who gave assurance to (Justice minister Patrick) Chinamasa and Mugabe that the MDC would contest the senatorial elections when the party president had outlined the MDC position?

Who secretly had meetings with the CIO before the October 12 fall-out and unsuccessfully tried to hatch a plan to bribe MDC provincial executives by promising them school fees for their children? Who have been publicly labelled "good professors" and "good boys" by the dictator himself, Robert Mugabe, in various public statements, which were published in state newspapers and never refuted?

Unless and until the Independent becomes a truly unbiased national paper, whose senior editorial staff does not consort with particular politicians of a particular region, we doubt the paper's capacity to unite the people regardless of one's ethnicity. Diversionary tactics from fringe politicians and a biased media will not sway the MDC. The people's project to dislodge this dictatorship is on the roll.

Zimbabwe needs a new beginning with an objective media that informs the people as opposed to a gutter press bent on poisoning its readership.

The people's struggle is unstoppable!

Nelson Chamisa,

MDC Secretary for

Information and Publicity,

Harare
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