Zimbabwe opposition officially falls apart - NOT

The excellent Publiuspundit has got it all wrong this time. According to their post, the MDC split has irreparably harmed the opposition in Zimbabwe and George Sibanda has been declared the leader.

This is, of course, what the government and Mugabe want people to believe.

Fortunately, Tsvangirai has still the reins of the MDC tightly in his hands (although he will have to take some dramatic action soon if he wants to keep the movement going) and his decision to boycott the Senate elections was approved and applauded by the majority as the elections' turn out amply demonstrated.

Eddie Cross (a member of the MDC executive), explains the situation:

Absolute Nonsense.

Yesterday the local rag, the Chronicle, State owned and CIO managed, published a banner headline "Sibanda stages Coup in MDC". This is interesting because it follows a large article in the same group of newspapers covering Welshman Ncube. Both the fact that these State controlled papers publish such articles and their content is informative. They are having a field day over the so-called MDC split.

In the article and in other interviews, Gibson Sibanda is arguing that he has the support of the people and commands the support of a majority of Members of Parliament of the MDC. Quite frankly that is twaddle.

Much is made by the Ncube group about the split decision on October the 12th in the MDC National Council. Since then the Council has met 3 times. On each occasion a two-thirds majority of the Council has voted unanimously to support the position of the President, Morgan Tsvangirai and to plan the way forward for the MDC. The situation in the National Executive has been the same - it has also met three times since the debacle on the 12th October and on each occasion the Executive has had a quorum and has also voted unanimously.

The Senate elections revealed in stark electoral terms that the MDC did not want to participate in what the great majority regarded as a total waste of time and resources. The people want change - real, fundamental change, and they know that this is never going to come out of the current electoral process, Parliament or any Senate election.

If the Ncube faction can only marshal a 2 per cent turn out in their stronghold - Bulawayo, in an election in which they spent Z$20 billion dollars, then they must understand they have missed the boat somewhere. They must stop this charade and decide if they are in politics or out of it.

See also this.

Zimbabwe, Mugabe, Tsvangirai