2018 ELECTIONS: The Person To Lead United Opposition Coalition
3 January 2017
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Kennedy Kaitano | Addressing a press conference recently to announce his party’s position regarding how the presidential candidate to represent the opposition parties in elections recently, Professor Welshman Ncube, leader of the MDC, is reported to have said recently “the coalition has to agree on who will lead it based on the person’s support base, his or her capacity to unite the coalition members and someone who agrees to work within the context of the coalition”.
All three are important aspects to be considered in selecting the candidate. However, the capacity to unite coalition members and agreeing to work within the context of the coalition are very debatable, and the opposition parties involved may spend a lot of time trying to justify things which are very difficult to justify.
Most, if not all of the opposition parties involved have split at some point: The MDC-T has had some of its leaders leaving the original MDC; Professor Ncube has had his colleagues leave the party several times; Tendai Biti and Elton Mangoma failed to work together; Dr. Makoni had problems with his party members and some of them have left. n the otnd, while Tsvangirai has lost some of his team, a good number of them have come back to the fold – does that make him a unifier?
Agreeing to work within the context of the coalition is also a difficult aspect to measure as there is no past to measure the candidates against.
The person’s support base therefore remains the only measurable method that could be employed to choose the candidate. I have argued along the same lines, and am excited that Professor Ncube and I share the same line of thinking on that one. My major argument remains that not every member of the parties involved in the coalition will vote for a candidate not from their choice party. We will loose the greatest number of votes if the candidate whose party commands most support is sidelined,  decrease the chances of removing Mugabe.
I therefore dismiss as the political joke of the year the resolution by Tendai Biti’s party that they will present him as a candidate for the Coalition when it comes to choosing the Presidential candidate. I advise Biti and his party to be serious about politics, otherwise no one will ever take them seriously. Firstly, they went all over the country endorsing Amai Mujuru as the best person to lead the coalition, and all of a sudden they change positions. I hope they widely open their eyes to the political reality.

0 Replies to “2018 ELECTIONS: The Person To Lead United Opposition Coalition”

  1. Having 2 or more coalition groups will not help matters.

    We have the coalition of Tsvangarai and Ncube and Mujuru

    Another of Biti, Dabengwa,et al …This will only split the votes .
    We need one grand coalition of all real parties..

    Tsvangarai is right though,to say some are briefcase parties ,much like shelf companies ..They hardly even have members ,so including these will not help at all.

    However I feel ,removing Biti and Dabengwa and makoni out of the matrix is poor judgment.

    Dabengwa,makoni,and Biti don’t have numbers in terms of support base…But they do have something,me thinks, which each will bring which is invaluable.

    Dabengwa brings in maturity and also gives the coalition votes from the die hard supporters of the politicians,no matter how few.

    Biti,hate him or like him ,he is a critical thinker and passionate.Although it is at times misdirected,but we need people of his calibre.

    Makoni too is an asset .

    So ,me thinks, the grand coalition should take these in ,not for the support they have ,no!.But for the individual contribution they bring…They bring flavour to the new Zimbabwe.

    The rest of the briefcase Parties must prove there worth.

  2. If you don’t work for and lead in the context of the Coalition, then it means you are leading and working in the context of your party. This will split the Coalition.

    This is what Welshman Ncube is saying.

    The Government of National Unity failed because Mugabe was not working in the context of a coalition. He continued as before, as if he was leading a ZANUPF only government, that had won elections!!

  3. Will the formation of the coalition stop Zanu PF rigging the elections? In March 2008 Tsvangirai got 73% of the vote but after five weeks of recounting by ZEC this was whittled to 47%. how will the coalition stop this happening again?

    Coalition is just an inconsequential solution to the problem of vote rigging offered by those who cannot think of substantive solutions.