Tsvangirai thumbs nose at Mbeki

Tsvangirai thumbs nose at Mbeki

• MDC supporters tell Tsvangirai to beat it

• J Mkobi & B Mokoena: Aborting democracy, rearing ethnicity

• High Court lifts Sikhala suspension

• Chikoko Muponde: Is Tsvangirai his own man?

• MDC split final - official

• Tsvangirai claims backing for senate boycott

• Sikhala drags Tsvangirai to court

• Trudy Stevenson: the arguments you never heard

• Open letter to Morgan Tsvangirai

• Job Sikhala: Why Tsvangirai can't fire me

• Sikhala unbowed by Tsvangirai suspension

• MDC talks end in deadlock

• Tsvangirai fires fresh salvo at colleagues

• MDC leaders meet to avert imminent split

• Sikhala withdraws MDC funding claims

• MDC youths on violence charges

• D Muleya: MDC goes down, fighting itself!

• Msekiwa Makwanya: Rank hypocrisy in MDC senate debate

• Nigeria, Ghana reject funding MDC

• Ncube not for turning

• Bekithemba Mhlanga: Label food, not people

• Nixon Mao: Our darkest day

• Tsvangirai threatens 'political action'

• Tsvangirai on ropes after senate rebellion

• Nigeria, Ghana sucked into MDC crisis

• Prof J Moyo: 'All Zanu PF want is geriatrics to be senators'

• Stanford Mukasa: Rejoinder to PT Nyathi

• Bloody Monday for MDC

• Paul T Nyathi: Tribal slurs easy to make, but extremely dangerous

• Brilliant Mhlanga: MDC no longer an alternative

• Patrick Mlambo: Tsvangirai has lost plot

• Nyathi hits back at Tsvangirai bribery claims

• B Mhlanga: Tsvangirai fell for Zanu PF bait

• Alex Magaisa: Handling a fledging democracy

• Elliot Pfebve: Tsvangirai & Mugabe, larvae and butterfly scenario

• MDC moves to impeach Tsvangirai

• Sibanda: Tsvangirai in breach of constitution

• Tsvangirai accuses officials of vote-buying

• Itai Zimunya: MDC split good for Zimbabwe

• Tsvangirai bid to heal rifts

• Chenjerai Hove: The MDC and a very Zimbabwean disease

• Tsvangirai must 'come to terms' - Nyathi

• M Makwanya: Lessons in democratic process

• Heads must roll

• MDC splits widen after senate vote

• Tsvangirai: We are out

• Nyathi: We are in

• MDC to boycott senate - Tsvangirai

By Staff Reporter

ZIMBABWE'S main opposition leader was last night ready to plunge his party into an international public relations disaster by addressing the European Parliament next week, days after he turned down an invitation by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa to discuss a damaging rift with his senior colleagues.

Sources told New Zimbabwe.com Wednesday that the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader would travel to Brussels, Belgium, next week to brief European MP's on a split that threatens the six-year-old opposition party.

Sources say Tsvangirai also wants to use the visit to stake his legitimacy with the international community in a raging power struggle with his senior colleagues, led by his deputy, Gibson Sibanda and the MDC's secretary general, Professor Welshman Ncube.

However, political analysts warned last night that Tsvangirai was playing into the hands of President Robert Mugabe's propaganda machinery which has always maintained that he is a puppet of Western powers seeking to destabilise Zimbabwe.

"Basically Tsvangirai is thumbing his nose to President Mbeki, who has tried to mediate in the MDC crisis but was told that it would be unnecessary by Tsvangirai," said an analyst last night.

"If he goes ahead with this trip, it will not only alienate him from the South African government but it will drive a wedge between the MDC, at least his faction, and the rest of the SADC leaders who have always been slightly circumspect about Tsvangirai."

The MDC's European Representative, Grace Kwinjeh, declined to comment last night, referring questions to Tsvangirai's spokesman William Bango. Calls to Bango's mobile had not been returned last night.

The MDC is currently locked in a bitter internal power struggle, sparked by a vote of the party's national council favouring participation in Senate elections on November 26.

Tsvangirai went against the national council's vote, and clashed with his colleagues who now accuse him of being a "dictator in the making". They have vowed never to work with him again.

President Mbeki extended an invitation to the MDC's Management Committee, known as the Top Six, to try and broker a truce. However, Tsvangirai delivered a snub by refusing to travel to South Africa, while his senior colleagues went and met Mbeki.

Analysts say it is "puzzling" why Tsvangirai would decline such an offer from an African leader, but be readily available to discuss his party's problems with MP's of European countries with little understanding of the Zimbabwean crisis.

"Tsvangirai has failed to convince his own colleagues about the direction he wants the party to take. He failed to discuss these issues with a respected regional leader, and he is now taking his gospel to Europe. What chance of salvation here? It's either he is politically naive or he has just gone potty," said an analyst who declined to be named.

Political journalist, Dumisani Muleya, told New Zimbabwe.com he expected the battle for the control of the party to continue until the party's national congress, expected to be held next February.

"It would appear to me that the only thing that will provide some form of finality to this split is the party's national congress. In the meantime, we will continue to see this mud bath," said Muleya, news editor of the weekly Zimbabwe Independent newspaper.
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