By Wisdom Mumera
Zimbabwe`s MDC-N opposition party is left with no option but to wait and capitalize on the infighting in rival parties which may present it with a chance to fight again after it took a hammering in last year’s elections, an official has said.
Senator David Coltart told this reporter that the Welshman Ncube led party had received such a huge blow from elections so much that they could only hope for the other parties to implode and use that chance for their own survival.
“We acknowledge that we took a hammering in the elections and that has presented the party with challenges which are very huge and the future depends very much on what happens in other parties”
“Currently the two bigger parties are facing problems and so we hope to capitalize on that and frankly speaking right now our future depends on what happens elsewhere”, he said.
The MDC-N has allegedly fallen on hard times after the electoral defeat with fears that it may not be able to finance its survival until the next round of elections in 2018.
Recently two of its members Edward Mkhosi and Siyabonga Ncube defected to the rival MDC-T.
However the former Education, Sports, Arts and Culture Minister differed.
“You should not write our obituary just yet even though we are facing challenges after the defeat, and mind you, we don’t have factional fights to the levels of the bigger parties”, he said.
During the July 31 elections MDC-N, gleaned a measly 2, 68 percent while ZANU (PF) grossed 61 percent and the MDC-T got 34 percent.
The emphatic defeat had led to speculations that the two former allies MDC-T and MDC-N, could reunite and try to take on ZANU (PF) as a unit since after their split they have failed to be worthy opponents to ZANU (PF).
That has however not been the case as the MDC-T is currently facing its own internal demons whilst the MDC N is straining to survive.
Despite his party’s intended strategic use of disturbances in other parties Coltart lamented the reports of factionalism in the other parties saying it was a disease affecting local politics as a whole.
“There is an attachment on the personalities of people and not on policies which they spread, that is what leads to such things as factionalism as people fail to separate the two”, he said.
Currently the MDC T has been plagued by perceived factional infighting as some sections have been calling for the removal of party leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
This resulted in the attack on Vice Treasurer Elton Mangoma by some party youths who are being represented in court by the party’s spokesperson Douglas Mwonzora.
Tsvangirai’s former principal director Jacob Mafume is representing Mangoma.
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